Bitter Leaves and Blossoms Bright
by callalili
Summary: The Hashshashin, I would learn, do not kill with blades alone.
1. Wildflowers: Blooddrop

A/N: Altair will show up later. I promise.

* * *

I was seven years old when Al Mualim found me. By most accounts I was an unremarkable child—small and thin and uncomfortably direct, with dark eyes too large for my narrow face, and knees and elbows that stuck out every which way. Still, Al Mualim must have seen something in the way I shyly offered him a flower plucked from my mother's garden, because he smiled and took my hand and asked to see my parents.

I was the second of five children, and the eldest of the three girls; my two younger sisters were playing in the vegetable garden as I led Al Mualim past them and up the muddy track to our house, and they pestered me afterward when he went inside to speak with my father—_who is that man?_ they asked. _He has such a very big beard. Do things get lost in it when he eats?_

But I couldn't be bothered by my sisters. I was watching the men Al Mualim had come with—two men in white robes, with crimson sashes like streaks of blood and glittering daggers, mounted on fine sleek horses that stamped and flicked their streaming tails into the wind—ah, that was more interesting! I went to give them flowers, too. It would be rude, after all, not to offer; so I went toward them, with two sprigs of blooddrops torn hastily from the garden and my sisters trailing behind me uncertainly, and I still remember they way they bowed to me from their horses, so gravely, and took the blossoms from my hand.

We were poor. I didn't realize it then, but we were, and on that day when I was seven years old, Al Mualim paid my parents twenty gold dinars and took me away.

—

By most accounts I was an unremarkable child, but Al Mualim thought otherwise. Twenty gold dinars was more than half the amount my father would make in a year; still, Al Mualim told me, it was a paltry amount for Masyaf, especially to acquire one such as I.

I was quick-witted and bold, he told me. I was clever. I was brave. In my too-wide eyes and awkward limbs, he saw the promise of great beauty; in the graceless way I clambered up behind him onto his horse, he saw agility and determination. I don't think he ever saw me—not then, at least. When Al Mualim cast his gaze upon the girl I was, he was always envisioning the weapon he would make of me.

The Hashshashin, I would learn, do not kill with blades alone.

Al Mualim took me to the stronghold of the Assassins. It was two day's journey from my parents' house. I was dusty and sore at the end of it, never having ridden a horse before, and I was frightened, too—the two men who rode with us were beginning to unnerve me with their silence and their gleaming blades.

But I saw the fortress as we approached—soaring against the horizon, the gray stones backlit by the setting sun, and streams of banners red as blood and edged in silver—

It glowed, grand and lovely, like the vision of an avenging angel leaping toward heaven. Al Mualim chuckled at my startled gasp. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked genially, nudging his horse down the road toward Masyaf. "Do not be so awed. It will be your home now."

That was my first lesson in beauty: do not be so awed.

It would not be my last.

—

The women's quarters at the assassin's stronghold is built into the mountains—a series of three crescent-shaped levels, one on top of the other cascading down the mountainside in a tumble of rough-hewn stone and greenery, and at the bottom where it touches the main fortress, there is a garden.

The Garden of a Thousand Lanterns, it is called, though of course that is an exaggeration. But it is a marvel to behold at night—lanterns upon lanterns, scattered everywhere like stars, and the air is filled with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. Expensive to keep, certainly; but Al Mualim is generous when it comes to his assassins, for he well understood the importance of morale. And so the garden was made into a tranquil place of life and beauty; necessary, I suppose, for men whose lives revolved around death. There are silver fountains there, and stands of flowers; there are cushioned benches to recline upon; there are women to attend to the men's every need.

Yes, even those. Or should I say: yes, particularly those? There is a reason why the seven Sacred Blossoms have their quarters on the first level of the women's compound—they serve as concubines for the men of the keep.

I was too young then to understand what the duties of a concubine entailed. All I understood, when Al Mualim brought me into the garden, was that the women were _beautiful_—so finely dressed, and glittering with adornments that shone in the lamplight, that I thought them all queens and princesses. Again I was awestruck.

Al Mualim laughed when I gathered up the courage to ask if he had brought me there to join them.

"No, my child," he told me. "There is a greater destiny in store for you."

And he was right, though I didn't understand that, either.

"We are going to see a woman," Al Mualim said, as he led me across the garden. "You are to treat her with the utmost respect, do you understand?"

I nodded. At that moment, I couldn't imagine treating _anyone_ in this strange place with anything but respect and awe—the men with their gleaming daggers, and the women with their beauty, and Al Mualim who had bought my life for twenty gold dinars. "Who is she?" I ventured.

Al Mualim smiled.

He took me to one of the covered pavilions. A girl was inside, playing with a doll; she scrambled up as we approached. "Sarai," Al Mualim said. "Go tell Shadha I need to see her."

The girl—Sarai—bowed and ran off, casting me a glance from beneath her long lashes as she went. Her eyes were very dark and very soft, I noticed, and they made me think of doves.

"Who is she?" I wanted to know.

"A student of Shadha's," he said, seating himself upon one of the low benches that ringed the pavilion. Somewhere nearby, there was the sound of falling water and a woman's laughter, drifting through the twilight air like a dream. "She is your age, I believe. Perhaps you two might become friends? Have a seat, child."

I sat, obediently. "Where is she from?" I asked, kicking my legs against the bench. "Did you buy her from her parents, like me? Does she have sisters? Will she like me?"

Al Mualim was smiling again. "I see that answering your questions only encourages more," he said genially. "Patience. You may ask her yourself, later."

And I did—though I am afraid to say that I so startled poor Sarai with my boldness that she hid from me for days. She was a sweet girl, Sarai, but dreadfully shy around strangers.

Shadha, when she appeared, was a rather unremarkable woman of about forty—unremarkable, that is, compared to the other glittering creatures in the garden—but Al Mualim rose for her, a rare honor from the Master of the assassins, and so I too scrambled to my feet and tried not to stare as they bowed toward each other.

"Shadha," Al Mualim said. "I have brought you a new pupil."

She turned her gaze on me. "Another one?" she asked dryly. "Master, I run an apprenticeship, not a school. Already Rasha is becoming quite a handful."

"This one is special," Al Mualim said.

I stood a little straighter and did my best to look extraordinary, though really I had no idea what either of them were talking about.

Shadha considered me. "I suppose." And, "What is your name, child?"

"Isra," I said.

"Isra," she repeated. She glanced at Al Mualim and raised her eyebrows. "And what will you name her, Master?"

He did not even need a moment to consider. "Blooddrop," he said. "And have a care in answering her questions, Shadha, for once you answer one, she will not stop until they are all satisfied."

"I shall consider myself warned," Shadha said, and took my hand. "You must be tired," she told me, kindly. "Come. We will arrange matters in the morning."

I followed her unquestioningly. Shadha was that sort of woman.

She took me to her rooms on the third level of the women's quarters and installed me with her other apprentices. There was Sarai, who I had already seen, and then there was Rasha, who was three years older than me and already showing signs of great beauty; they stared at me curiously as Shadha introduced me, and then came forward to ask me questions when she had left.

Or at least, Rasha did; Sarai, as I have mentioned, was too shy to speak.

"Where are you from?" Rasha wanted to know, bouncing slightly on the mat that served as her bed.

I had no idea. "A farm," I said, rather lamely. Then: "Where are _you_ from?"

"Damascus," Rasha said proudly. "Shadha found me when I was really little. I've been here for ages and ages, so I know _everything._ Sarai's from Masyaf," she added as an afterthought, nodding toward the other girl. Sarai ducked her head as I glanced at her. "Her mother's the wine merchant's daughter."

"What about her father?" I asked curiously.

"Oh, he's an assassin," Rasha said. "He's _never_ around. They go on missions, you know. It's all very secret." She grinned at me, and bounced again. "But I know about them. Shadha tells me, because I'm the oldest."

"What else does Shadha say?"

"All sorts of things," Rasha confided. "Come on, Sarai, tell her what Shadha said about you."

Sarai peered at me. She was curled up on her mat, knees to chest, and the wavering light from the lantern reflected from her eyes and made them luminous. "She says I'm good with numbers," Sarai said, so softly I had to strain to hear her. Rasha beamed and bounced again.

"See?" she said brightly. "And Shadha says I'm going to be a rich man's wife and have lots of jewelry. But she also says I'm a she-devil who'll be the death of her, sometimes, so maybe she was joking. Anyway, what did she say about you?"

Shadha hadn't said anything to me. I shrugged.

"That's all right," Rasha told me. "She'll have plenty to say later, I'm sure. She's good at finding things we're good at."

"What do you _do_?" I asked, fascinated.

Rasha made a face. "Shadha makes us learn things," she said. "Like numbers, and she makes us read all these books. And then Al Mualim told her to teach us Frankish, so now we have to learn _that_, and riding, and plants, and everything, and I don't see why if I'm going to be a rich man's wife, but she says it's important."

I glanced at Sarai. She was peering down at her feet, though I could tell she was listening intently. "Are you going to be a rich man's wife, too?" I asked her.

Sarai shook her head, still silent. Rasha sighed.

"It's all right," she told me. "She wouldn't talk to me for a _week_ until I got here. She's just really shy."

"Oh." I had never been shy in my life, so I wasn't quite certain what this meant. Rasha grinned at me.

"We should go to sleep," she said. "Shadha will want to talk to you in the morning, and she'll be angry if you keep yawning. You can share my pallet tonight," she added generously. "Tomorrow you'll get your own. Sarai, blow out the lamp, will you?"

Sarai leaned forward obligingly. I clambered onto the mat next to Rasha, and she moved aside to make room for me; in the darkness, I lay down on the narrow pallet and listened to the sound of the wind sighing through the mountains.

"Goodnight," Rasha announced.

"Goodnight," I echoed, and there was an answering murmur from Sarai's corner. I closed my eyes.

This is how I entered into the service of the Assassins.


	2. Wildflowers: Windflower

It was three days before Sarai finally spoke to me.

"Don't cry," she said softly, sitting down beside me on the wide library windowsill. "Why are you crying?"

Because I was seven years old, and homesick, and more than a trifle lonely. I drew my hand across my eyes and sat up straighter. "I'm not crying," I said.

Sarai regarded me thoughtfully with her dark eyes. "Shadha says she will teach us how to lie better, when we are older," she informed me. "But she also says that we shouldn't lie to each other."

"Because I miss my sisters," I told her.

"Oh." Sarai, I would learn later, was an only child. "Do you want to go home?"

I shook my head. Home was a cramped house with dirt floors and a squalling baby brother; home was a front garden filled with weeds and not enough food at dinnertime. My parents had sold me because, in truth, they could not afford five children—obvious, even at the age of seven. I did not even begrudge them this.

I was a strange child. Perhaps that was why Al Mualim had chosen me.

And besides, I thought indignantly, I had only been crying a very little bit.

"I don't go home either," Sarai confided. "My grandfather doesn't like me."

"Your grandfather?" I asked, curious.

She nodded solemnly. "He lives in Masyaf," she said. "He says I am his daughter's misbegotten get."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Sarai said, shrugging. "But Shadha won't let me see him anymore, after he shouted that at me, last time we went to see him."

It was probably something dreadful. I filed it away in my memory to ask Rasha about later; Sarai would not have asked, because Shadha would not have approved of her knowing, but Rasha had no such qualms. "What about your mother?" I asked.

"She died of a fever when I was five," Sarai said. She drew her knees up to her chin and peered at me over them. "And my father's always out on missions. But Shadha says we are all family at Masyaf, so that's all right."

We were all family at Masyaf—it was a comforting thought, to a child who had just lost hers. "Oh," I said.

"Are you done with your letters?" Sarai asked.

Shadha gave us lessons to practice every morning, and in the afternoon we were to finish our exercises before she came to inspect them at dinnertime. I shook my head. "They're hard."

"I'll help," she offered.

"Really?"

It was the first time I saw Sarai smile. She was missing a front tooth, but still it was the most comforting thing I had seen in a while, and I found myself liking her despite her shyness. "Yes," she said. "Let's go sit outside."

—

Our lives at Masyaf were circumscribed, but it did not feel that way—not until years and years later, when I ventured outside the mountain stronghold and into the wide world beyond.

For the most part, we stayed in the women's quarters and in the garden, venturing into the library for lessons and into the kitchen for meals as necessary. Technically the entirety of the fortress was open to us; I soon learned, however, that assassins tend to frown upon having young girls underfoot, and that it was generally better to stay out of their way.

Beyond the fortress—Masyaf, and the mountains—that was entirely forbidden to us. Not that it stopped Rasha when she felt the urge to slip away; or me, either, when she began inviting me along on her escapades, though Sarai never went. We were occasionally caught and punished with writing lines.

But it was worth it, I always felt. The marketplace of Masyaf was a bustling, wonderful place—and oh! the mountains were even better, lush and beautiful, and there were wildflowers and hidden crags and the lonely sweep of eagles overhead, and Rasha and I would return flushed and breathless from exercise.

And, in any case, we learned better ways of subterfuge over the years, and were caught less and less often. A useful skill, as it turned out.

These are the places in the fortress where we lived, Sarai and Rasha and I:

Our room was a long, narrow room partly carved into the mountainside, and part of Shadha's suite on the third level of the women's quarters. It had three straw pallets, where we slept, and a shared dresser for our clothing, and a lantern. It had two windows, where Sarai continually tried to grow flowers, though the seeds never sprouted, and there was a continual sequence of empty pots on the windowsills.

The remainder of Shadha's suite was five rooms: her bedroom, her study where we sometimes had lessons, a music room where we learned to play the flute (with varying degrees of reluctance on our parts), and two locked rooms where we were not allowed to go. At the time I did not think much of these locked rooms; later, when I learned the full extent of what Shadha did, I would understand.

Below us were the quarters for the female servants of the fortress—five cooks and three maids on the second level, and of course the seven Sacred Blossoms of the Garden on the first. We would visit them sometimes, these glittering courtesans who served the keep, and they would teach us things—how to clean a mirror, how to outline our eyes with kohl, how to recognize fabrics by touch, how to tell if a bracelet was gold, or if the merchant was trying to trick you.

Then, of course, there was the Garden. We played in the fountains and dozed beneath the trees at the height of summer; we watched the assassins flirt with the Sacred Blossoms, and nudged each other, giggling. There was Rakid, a kind young man in his early twenties, who gave us lessons on how to use a knife when I asked; there was Khalid, who was older, who steadfastly refused to sully our girlish innocence with knowledge of war.

"You will grow up to be lovely women, one day," he would tell us, smiling. "Lovely women do not fight. It detracts from their beauty."

But he taught us the names of all the birds that flew overhead—swifts, and red hawks and black hawks, and imperial eagles—and the names of the creatures that lurked in the mountains, and the names of flowers. So our girlish innocence was preserved, in his eyes.

And of course, there was Al Mualim, who would come to visit us sometimes, and he would sit and tell us stories of great assassins and glorious deeds. Al Mualim certainly had no qualms whatsoever about sullying our girlish innocence.

—

We had regular lessons as well, in addition to the impromptu ones picked up here and there around the fortress; Shadha gave us an education that would have impressed the most hidebound scholar in Jerusalem. Sarai and I were still learning our letters, but Rasha, who was three years older, had already been started on the histories, and at night she would tell us stories of wars and faraway kings and the fall of empires. I, at least, was riveted.

Sarai was more interested in numbers and plants. Shadha gave her books on herbology to read, and I think Sarai might have become a gardener if she had been any good at making things sprout; as it was, I think even then Shadha had been training her to become an accountant and an alchemist.

It was a strange combination—but Al Mualim took a long view of things, and all of our education was undertaken with his express approval.

As for me: I think Shadha was uncertain about what to do with me. I was curious about everything.

These are the things we learned at the fortress of the assassins:

The history of the world—the philosophy of the Greeks, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the long winding path of the Silk Road, the glory of the prophet Mohammed and his followers, the play of politics that raged back and forth across Europe and stretched its tendrils into the courts of Salah al-Din and the Byzantines. We read Homer, and Virgil, and the great poets of the east; we read literature and philosophy and theology.

We learned to count. We learned how to add and subtract and multiply; we learned algebra and geometry; we learned how to keep track of income and expenses and tax rolls. Shadha talked Khalid into giving us a smattering of lessons in astronomy—enough for us to find out way home, if we were lost in the desert. One of the scholars who worked in the library would give us lectures in natural philosophy. A midwife from Masyaf would come up sometimes—and if she did not quite teach us the rudiments of herbalism, she at least taught us which plants we shouldn't put into our mouth.

We learned languages: Greek, Latin, Frankish, English, Persian. We were hardly fluent in them, but we learned to listen and to read, so that we might not be utterly lost if a ship came by and brought us to Europe.

So many lessons! it has been protested. So many lessons, and to what end, for two girls who were seven and one who was ten?

But remember this: Al Mualim had a vision.

And this as well: I would not be seven years old forever. These lessons took years and years, and it was a decade and more before I recognized the extent of what Al Mualim had done.

—

Sarai helped me with my letters, and then we sat in the garden and shared a honey cake the cook had given us. Rasha came running over soon after and plopped down onto the grass next to us, panting. "I know something you don't," she said, smug.

Sarai didn't bother saying anything. She merely broke off a section of the honey cake and passed it over, and Rasha took it and sat up.

"We're not having lessons tomorrow," Rasha said.

"But we always have lessons," I objected, having been at Masyaf all of three days.

"Maybe," Rasha said, unflappable. "But Shadha won't be giving them. I was in the library and there was a word I didn't know, so I went to find Shadha to ask, only when I went there was a messenger running up to her, so I hid behind a bookcase."

"Shadha says we shouldn't eavesdrop," Sarai said, which from Sarai was a withering condemnation of Rasha's moral compass. But Rasha only shrugged.

"How else are we supposed to learn anything, then?" she demanded. "Anyway, all I heard was the messenger telling her that oleander had sent a package, and of course you know what that means—"

"What does that mean?" I asked, because I didn't.

Rasha blinked at me. "Oh," she said. "Oleander's her friend. I don't know her real name, but she comes to visit sometimes, and she's very sweet—anyway, don't you have a name, too? Didn't Al Mualim give you one when you came here?"

I remembered Al Mualim and the garden all strung up with lanterns, and Shadha asking what I would be named. "Blooddrop," I said out loud.

Rasha nodded in satisfaction. "See? Like that. Shadha's acanthus, and Sarai's a windflower, and I'm a sun's eye tulip."

"What are they for?" I wanted to know.

Rasha shrugged again. "I don't know. Sending secret messages?"

"How is it secret if everyone knows what your name is?"

"I don't know," Rasha said impatiently. "Look, any time someone mentions oleander, Shadha goes rushing off to Masyaf. We have until dinnertime to convince her to take us with her, or else she'll leave us with one of the Blossoms and we'll have to spend all day _inside_."

That motivated even Sarai, who loved the marketplace of Masyaf. She sat up. So did I.

"What do we do?" I wanted to know.

"Easy," Rasha said, grinning. "We'll just tell her you've never seen a city."

* * *

A/N: Hooray for medieval sexism!


	3. Wildflowers: Eye of Sun

Masyaf was not a city in the strictest sense; it was too small to really be considered a city, for one, and in any case it did not appear on the tax records of any of the neighboring kingdoms.

Most of the people living in Masyaf had connections to the assassins—they sold food or equipment to the fortress, or they watched over the stables that the assassins kept; even the traveling merchants who came through the city would first make a trip up to the fortress to pay their respects to the Master and show him their wares. There were closer ties, too. Many of the assassins came from Masyaf; many of the assassins, if they chose to marry, made their homes there. Sarai had lived in Masyaf until she was five and her mother had died. Afterward, her father had moved back to the fortress, and Shadha had taken Sarai in as her pupil.

Families and property and separate households—quite a bit of freedom, one might think, for what was essentially a military order.

But that is incorrect on both counts.

Masyaf is as closely bound to the fortress as any of the assassins were. It was, in fact, more an extension of the fortress than anything else. The city paid tithes to the fortress, and in return Al Mualim sent guards to patrol and protect Masyaf—a feudal lord and his fiefdom, I would be reminded of later, when Shadha taught us about political systems and the intricate hierarchies therein.

And, more importantly, remember this:

The Hashshashin is not a military order.

—

When I had been at the assassin's fortress for four days, Shadha took us down to Masyaf, and I saw my first city.

I had passed through before, when Al Mualim first brought me to the Hashshashin on the back of his horse, but it was night and in any case I had been too tired to gawk; after that, I had spent my time in the confines of the fortress, and though I could look down upon Masyaf from the fortress windows, it was not at all the same experience as being within the city itself.

And later—years and years and years later—I would go to Damascus, where silk and spices and lapis lazuli from the East were exchanged for European gold; I would go to Jerusalem and see the glitter of sunlight off the great golden dome of the Temple Mount; I would go as far as Alexandria, and Cairo, and further still.

But Masyaf was my first city, back when I was still a wide-eyed farm girl fresh from the provinces, and though in truth it was only a scant collection of four or five crooked streets and a market square—well, I was still in awe. I had never seen so many _people_ before. It was still early morning when Shadha brought us down to the square, but already the merchants were setting up their stalls, and zealous housewives were haggling with them for the freshest produce. I stared.

We stopped by the small fountain in the center of the square. "I have a job for you three," she told us, smiling. "I need things from the market, and you will purchase them for me, and you will keep an account, yes? Rasha, I am giving you the purse, because you are the oldest—do not lose it, understand?"

Rasha nodded, already bouncing up and down in excitement. "I won't lose it," she said eagerly.

"No, I suppose you won't." For some reason, Shadha sounded rather wry as she handed over the purse. "And stay out of trouble," she added. "Here is the list of things I need and a basket. I'll be back by noon."

"Yes, Shadha," we chorused, and she left us.

Rasha tied the purse to her skirt and grinned at us. "This will be fun," she promised me, holding out the list. "Come on, let's see what we need."

—

We bough attar of roses for the Sacred Blossoms, and a comb for a cook who had lost hers, and jars of cinnamon and saffron and pepper for the kitchen. There was more money in that purse than I had ever seen in my entire life, and more luxuries in the marketplace of Masyaf than I could imagine—I stared, wide-eyed, at the colorful sacks of spices beneath the merchants' awnings and the glittering rows of jewelry laid out beneath the sun, and Rasha had to elbow me to remind me not to gawk.

"They charge more if they see you staring," she told me cheerfully, as we walked away from a merchant who wanted too much for a jar of kohl. "Stay behind me and look less interested, or at least stare at something we won't be buying."

I nodded. I didn't even know what kohl was, and was only vaguely acquainted with the idea of spices, though I thought they smelled lovely. But it was all so new and _exciting_. "Where are we going now?" I wanted to know.

"Another merchant," Rasha said, the laden basket bouncing against her hip as she moved. "Someone who won't try to cheat us. Sarai, do you still remember all the money we've spent?"

"Seven dinars and three dirhams for the pepper," Sarai recited. "Ten and eight for the saffron—"

Ten dinars for a sack of saffron the size of my hand—that was half the price Al Mualim had paid for me, I remembered. For me, he could have bought a little less than two sacks of yellow powder. Masyaf was rich. Or saffron was very expensive. Or both; or the life of a girl-child was not worth very much.

"—four copper pieces for the comb—"

Rasha, I had learned, was an excellent haggler. At that moment, I would also learn why Shadha had looked so wry as she handed the purse over.

"—nine and a quarter dinars for the cinnamon, two—"

Sarai's recitation ended in a surprised cry as a boy came out of the crowd and shoved her. She stumbled into me, and I caught her, and Rasha turned around, looking furious.

"You'd hit a _girl_?" she demanded.

The boy sneered at her. He was her age, perhaps a year or two older, and taller than her by half a head. "She was in my way," he snapped.

Beside me, Sarai sighed.

"I'm all right," she said, leaving me to tug gently at Rasha's sleeve. "Really. Let's just go—"

But Rasha was having none of it. "You are a bully," she announced loudly, and it would have been quite dramatic if the boy hadn't chosen that moment to shove her, as well. Rasha staggered backward and dropped the basket. I dove forward to catch it before the spices could spill everywhere, which was a good thing, as Rasha, in a fit of rage, had completely forgotten about it.

"You _are_ a bully," she said, outraged, and punched the boy in the jaw. I was so shocked I nearly dropped the basket. Sarai sighed again.

"Is she allowed to do that?" I asked her, a bit awed.

"Not really," Sarai answered. Rasha and the boy were getting into a heated scuffle that was rapidly catching the attention of the adults around us—especially the woman they had just managed to crash into. "But she always does, anyway."

"Should we help her?"

"I'll carry the basket if you want to," Sarai said, judiciously. "But you'll probably only get elbowed in the eye, and anyway Rasha chased off two boys last time who wanted to throw rocks at us, so I think she's all right—"

There was a splash as Rasha somehow managed to push the boy into the fountain. Water went spraying everywhere, and he lunged upward, looking furious, and pulled her down with him. I was awed again.

"Is she going to lose the purse?" I asked.

"Probably not," Sarai said, sighing. She pulled me backward, out of the way of another wave of water. "She always ties it very tightly, just in case this happens—" Then she sighed again, in relief this time. "Oh, good, it's Rakid—"

It was Rakid. The white-robed man waded into the throng—rather bravely, I thought, since there were fists and knees and elbows flying everywhere, not to mention gusts of water—and reached in.

"Stop this at once," he said, sternly, pulling them apart by the collars. "You are causing a scene."

The boy had the good grace to look embarrassed. Rasha merely glared. "He started it," she accused.

"Regardless," Rakid said, giving them both a hearty shake. "You will apologize to everyone here. Then you will apologize to each other. Understood?"

Rakid was kind and soft-spoken, but he was an assassin, and that was the first time I had a glimpse of the influence the Hashshashin wielded in Masyaf; Rasha must listen, of course, because she lived in the fortress, but even the boy bowed his head and muttered an apology to the irritated, sodden crowd that had gathered around us. Then they glared at each other and apologized again, with much less sincerity, and Rakid let them both go.

"Kaddar," he said to the boy. "Fighting a girl is beneath you. Be assured your father will be hearing of this."

Red-faced, the boy ran off into the crowd. Rasha wrung the water out of her hair and looked defiant. "He _did_ start it," she announced. "He shoved Sarai."

"I'm sure," Rakid said, wryly. "I'm certain Shadha will have words to say. Try not to get into any more trouble today, Rasha, next time I might not be around to stop him from getting his nose broken, and then Al Mualim will want to know why you were wrestling in the town square."

He left. Rasha came back to us, dripping wet and unrepentant. "I hate him," she announced.

I blinked. "Rakid?"

"No," she said impatiently. "Kaddar. He's always bothering us when we come down here. Let's go, we still need to get that kohl. And some shoes for you, Isra, since you don't have any yet."

She wandered toward the other end of the market, leaving wet footprints in her wake. Sarai and I trailed after her. "Shadha says he is in love with her," Sarai whispered to me. "She says he's a boy, so he doesn't know what else to do besides push her and get into fights."

"Is she in love with him?" I whispered back.

"I don't know," Sarai confessed. "But I think if she were, she wouldn't know what else to do, either."

We giggled quietly to ourselves as Rasha haggled with the amused-looking merchant, dripping onto the cobblestones all the while.

—

Rasha had mostly dried out by the time Shadha came to find us. We had finished our shopping and were sitting on a bench in the market square, facing the fountain; Rasha was holding her skirt out before her so that it might dry faster. She dropped it immediately as Shadha came into sight.

It wasn't quick enough, however.

"Surely you have been sent to torment me," Shadha said dryly, stopping before us and inspecting all three of us from head to foot. "Rasha, what have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Nothing," Rasha said too quickly.

Shadha merely raised an eyebrow. "Sarai?"

"Kaddar came and pushed me," Sarai recited. "Rasha called him a bully and punched him, and then they got into a fight, and Rakid came and pulled them apart."

"Did you at least finish the shopping?"

We all nodded. I was wearing my new shoes, and they were strange and confining for a farm girl who had gone barefoot all this while; my parents had not been able to afford such luxuries as shoes for their children, but now it was merely another sign of my life at Masyaf.

"Did you keep an account?"

We nodded again.

"I suppose it was too much for me to expect that you would stay out of trouble," Shadha said dryly, taking the basket from us. "Rasha, as your punishment you will write three pages on the virtues of patience and diplomacy. Now let's go home, before I'm tempted to ask why you're damp all over."

"Last time she gave her five pages," Sarai whispered to me as we left. She paused, thinking.

"But then," she added, "last time Rasha gave Kaddar a black eye."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys! They are much appreciated, especially in a fandom as tiny as this one.

Altair will show up in chapter 5.

Also, since I've done so much research for this, I think it's only fair for me to inflict some of it on you. For example, the dinar was a gold coin in use at this time, and the dirham was a silver coin that was worth about one tenth of a dinar, although of course exchange rates varied with time and place. The copper coins were called fals. During the crusades, the dirham came into wider use, as the gold dinars were being taken away by Saladin to fund his military expeditions.

Blooddrops are _Adonis annua _of the family _Ranunculaceae_; windflowers are _Anemone coronaria _of the family _Ranunculaceae_; eye-of-sun, or mountain tulip, is_Tulipa agenensis_ of _Liliaceae_. They're all very pretty.


	4. Fortress: Vista

A/N: Short chapters, so here's two of them.

* * *

It took Rasha a whole week to write her essay, and it took twice as long for me to grow accustomed to my new shoes, but life in the fortress went on.

Shadha would hear from oleander every few weeks, and though she would not always take us to Masyaf with her, it was always a great adventure when she did. Invariably, she would leave us in the marketplace with a shopping list and instructions to stay out of trouble; invariably, Rasha would manage to get into some sort of scrape with Kaddar.

I thought it strange, at first, that Rasha would get no more punishment than a stern talking-to and a writing assignment. Khalid certainly thought it strange; he informed us, in no uncertain terms, that if Rasha had been his daughter and he had found her brawling on the street, she would have gotten the beating of her life.

"Then I am glad that I am not your daughter," Rasha told him, grinning.

Khalid chuckled at that. He was fond of us, even if he disapproved—and, in truth, I think he would have been disappointed if we had grown up to be obedient and docile. In any case, it was not in Al Mualim's plan to have us so. If we got into fights, we were expected to win; if we snuck out from the fortress so that we might explore the mountainside, we were expected not to get caught; if we were curious and listened to conversations we shouldn't have, we were expected to at least learn something interesting.

I thought this strange, as well.

But it suited me.

—

Shadha played a game with us, whenever we returned from a trip to Masyaf. She would buy us treats from the marketplace, and we would sit down in the garden fortress to eat them, and as we did she would ask us questions.

"Sarai," she would say. "There was a man selling baskets near the fountain today. Tell me about him."

And Sarai would answer: "He had thirteen large baskets on his left, and four small ones on his right, and today he also had some new pots for sale on a piece of green cloth. He was wearing an undyed shirt with a bit of embroidery around the throat, and brown pants that were fraying at the hems, and a shiny silver ring on—"

"Good," Shadha would interrupt. "Rasha, tell me something else about him."

And Rasha would answer: "It was a new shirt, since it wasn't frayed, and last time he wasn't selling pots, so he's probably gotten married to a woman who makes pots and does some embroidery, especially if he was wearing a new ring, and it must have been a new ring since it hasn't gotten tarnished yes, and—"

"Good," Shadha would interrupt again. And, "Isra?"

"If he's gotten married, he must have come into some money recently," I would answer. "Baskets must be selling well. And pots, if he's trying something new. Perhaps he'll be looking for an apprentice soon, though I don't think he has one yet, if he has more large baskets than small ones; he would start an apprentice on the small baskets first."

If our answer was incorrect, Shadha would show us where our reasoning had gone wrong; if our answer satisfied her, she would ask another question. Later she would begin to post challenges to us before we went: "There is a new merchant in the marketplace," she would say. "Who is he?" Or, "Why have pomegranates increased two-fold in price since this time last year?" Or, "I need a yard of red silk; what is happening in Damascus?"

Strange questions, perhaps. But we would go into Masyaf and find the answers, and Shahda would give us extra treats if we managed to do so without making a nuisance of ourselves. Omar was a traveling trader who dealt in spices along the Syrian coast; pomegranates were suffering a blight this year; red silk had become more expensive, because Damascus had raised tariffs on dyed cloths due to political intrigue between the guilds there. We did not have reading and writing and arithmetic lessons on these days, but we had lessons of another sort: we learned of subtlety, and of the great wheels that made the world turn.

—

Information trickled into the fortress with all the speed and accuracy of a clumsy second-year with his first throwing daggers; news came into Masyaf from the traders who came by, and the assassins brought the news back up to the fortress, and they spoke to the Sacred Blossoms when they came to partake of the delights of the garden, and finally Sarai and Rasha and I heard of it when the women gossiped amongst themselves. Shadha, who received messengers at all hours, always knew what was going on. Her pupils, however, had to rely on the unsteady pulse of second-hand rumor.

It helped that the women were inordinately fond of gossip. Rasha did not have the patience to listen to them for long; Sarai would rather read. But I—I was curious, and so I listened, and there were things I learned this way.

For example: when I was nine years old, Al Mualim went down to Masyaf and deemed Kaddar suitable for training as a novice.

—

Rasha was not pleased when I told her.

"He's going to be insufferable," she said gloomily, flopping down onto the grass next to me. "He'll think he's better than us and try to order us around."

Sarai and I looked at each other. Rasha never listened to anyone who ordered her around. Wisely, neither of us pointed this out. "He'll only be a novice," I offered.

"We don't have any rank at all," Rasha complained, which was true. "He'll still outrank us. And he has a _brother_, and they'll both be novices, and run around causing all sorts of trouble, and it'll ruin _everything_—"

"He's not so bad," Sarai said. "You do provoke him, you know."

Rasha sat up at that. "I do not!" she said indignantly.

"You called him a lazy slug once," I said.

"Because he was in my way!"

Sarai and I looked at each other again. Rasha, scowling darkly, was too busy brooding to notice.

—

In three month's time, Kaddar turned thirteen and began his training at the fortress.

These are the things I learned about him:

His father was a merchant and his uncle was an assassin stationed in Acre. He had an older brother, whose name was Malik, who was a year older and already a novice. He was square-jawed and scrawny and troublesome, especially around Rasha; he enjoyed wrestling and detested history; he had a fondness for cats and was extremely defensive about it.

Some of this I learned from gossip. Some of this I learned from induction, putting to use the lessons Shadha had taught us about such things.

Some of this I learned first-hand—I caught him feeding the kittens in the kitchen once with leftover scraps from his lunch, and he walked away from me very quickly, red-eared, and glared at me for weeks afterward. For my part, I did not think liking kittens was such a terrible crime. I kept my mouth shut about it anyway; Shadha had long since taught me the value of discretion, especially when Rasha and Kaddar were concerned.

They got into each other's way enough as it was without my help. Novices under sixteen were not allowed in the garden, and we were not allowed in the fortress proper, but they managed to squabble with each other nonetheless—in the library, in the kitchens, in the back hallways of the fortress.

Somehow, they were rarely caught. I suspected collusion when they heard someone coming. But Rasha always came away from these encounters fuming and incensed, and Kaddar rarely escaped without a scrape or two; Sarai and I, for our part, found it all greatly entertaining.

"Shadha says that in ten years they will be married," Sarai whispered to me, and we burst into giggles at the thought.

* * *

A/N: People got married early in those days-fourteen, for example, wouldn't be unusual. But these girls have considerably more freedom.


	5. Fortress: Sparring Ring

A/N: For everyone who's been looking forward Altair, here he is!

* * *

The first time I saw Altair ibn La-Ahad, I was eleven years old and he was seventeen, and the fortress was buzzing with the news of his return from Jerusalem. Seventeen; nearly a man then, and already privileged to wear the sword of the Hashshashin at his side, and there were tales about all the impressive things he had done in his time at the city.

Rasha was the one who wanted to see him. In truth, I hadn't really wanted to go; I was eleven, after all, and more interested in climbing trees and splashing through the garden fountains than in sneaking out to spy on this man that all the women were gossiping about. Rasha, however, was fascinated by the rumors.

"They say he's very handsome," she said, giggling, as she clambered up the mountainside before me. "They say he has piercing eyes, like dark stars—"

How could stars be dark?

"They've never seen him," I pointed out, pointing out the more obvious problem. "He never comes into the garden."

It was true. The garden was open to all, but Altair, to my knowledge, had never stepped foot in it; later I would learn that this was because he hated the concubines and what they did. But I didn't know that then.

"But the men tell them about it," Rasha persisted. She helped me over a rock, the sunlight catching in her merry eyes. She smiled. "They say he's very good with the short sword. He practices all the time."

It was hardly the first time we had snuck out, Rasha and I—shy, sweet Sarai was unwilling to don a boy's clothes and go clambering over walls—but Rasha was the daredevil, and I was always curious, so together the two of us would go exploring beyond the confines of the garden when Shadha wasn't watching. We would go to the armory to play at being soldiers; we would go running about the mountainside and bring back wildflowers for Sarai; we would, if we were feeling especially daring and Shadha was particularly preoccupied, sneak down to Masyaf and wander about the marketplace and, inevitably, get chased off by some irate merchant who didn't want two grubby street urchins touching his silks.

But my least favorite place to go was the practice grounds—watching men go at each other with fists and steel was not my idea of fun.

Rasha, however, was fourteen now, and discovering a newfound fascination for the other gender. There was nowhere better for her to indulge her curiosity than the sparring ring.

"Maybe he's out on a mission," I said, though my hopes were rather dim. "He might not even be in the fortress at all."

"Come on, Isra," Rasha said cheerfully. "Aren't you curious, even a little bit? We'll only go there for a little while, I promise, and then we can go visit that spring we found last week."

Of course I was curious; I was always curious. Sighing, I let Rasha boost me over the low wall that separated the practice grounds from the rest of the fortress. "Only a _little_ while," I said, helping her up.

"It'll be fun," she promised.

We dropped softly down into the pile of hay on the other side of the wall. Rasha tugged a piece of straw from my hair. Already I could hear the clash of steel on steel; Rasha was giggling again. "Maybe he'll be in the ring," she whispered to me, excitedly. "The women say he moves like an eagle in flight."

"They've never seen him," I pointed out again, futilely.

"Then we'll have something to tell _them_, for once," Rasha said. "Let's go, before the patrols come—"

I sighed again and followed her.

We hid in the shadow of one of the fortress towers as two guards came walking by; when they were gone again, we crept around the base and into the practice grounds proper. Our caution proved to be unnecessary. No one was looking in our direction; the thirty or so men gathered before the sparring ring were all watching the fighters intently, shouting encouragement and advice in between flurries of steel. Rasha made an impatient noise.

"They are so _tall_," she whispered to me, craning her neck. "I can't see a thing."

I couldn't either; just flashes of white robes and worn leather boots moving back and forth, in between the legs of all the men standing in front of us. I tugged on Rasha's sleeve. "Let's go," I whispered back. "He probably isn't even here."

Rasha sighed in disappointment. "But I wanted to see him," she complained.

"You don't even know what he looks like," I said. "How will you tell who he is?"

Which would have ended the matter then and there, had it not been for a young man to our left, who cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Get him, Altair! Beneath his guard!"

That decided the matter. Rasha's eyes brightened; she seized my hand. "He's in the ring!" she whispered excitedly. "We have to see this—come on, Isra, we can climb on that—"

She was pointing toward a piece of scaffolding that had been erected just a few feet away; Al Mualim had ordered renovations done on the tower's masonry. "But they'll _see_," I protested; the wooden structure was in plain view of all of the practice grounds.

Not to mention it was one of the most rickety pieces of scaffolding I'd ever laid eyes on.

"No one's watching," Rasha said, and was off. I had no choice but to follow, horrible images of the structure collapsing beneath us playing themselves out in my mind's eye.

Steel on steel; a clang, a round of cheers from the crowd, and then Rasha was pulling me up onto the top of the scaffolding and I was turning to watch the ring, curious despite myself; the two figures had separated now, and were circling each other warily, white and red and silver all glinting in the sunlight. They were sparring with naked blades—long swords, I noted absently—that was unusual, wasn't it, for a novice to be granted that privilege? For I was quite certain Altair was a novice; he was only seventeen, after all, and the gossip had only started up a few months ago—

They moved toward each other; another brief clash of steel, almost too fast for my eyes to follow, and they were apart again, circling—

"That's _Rakid_," Rasha said, pointing to the man closest to us. "Altair must be the other one; oh, this is exciting! Can you see his face?"

I clung to the wood and wished she wouldn't bounce so. I could hear it creaking. Of course I couldn't see his face; Rakid was facing us, which meant that we had an excellent view of Altair's white-robed back. "They're not even doing anything," I complained. "They're just—"

But they burst into action before I could finish my sentence.

There was wild shouting from the crowd. Altair had leapt forward to deliver a hard flurry of blows, and Rakid stepped back, and back again, and then all of a sudden flipped toward the side and rolled, coming up again beneath Altair's guard. Altair only just managed to dodge the attack in time—naked blades, I thought, he must be good or they would not allow him the risk—and then Rakid was pressing his advantage, forward and up, and it was Altair who was backing away—

Rasha made a small, stifled sound of excitement.

He could not possibly have heard us. There were thirty men shouting contradictory pieces of advice at the fighters; there was Rakid before him with his sword poised to attack; there was, most likely, sun in his eyes. But Altair looked up anyway.

He looked straight at us.

And I thought: the women were right, about his piercing eyes—dark and dangerous, like an eagle's—

And then Rakid was bringing his sword swinging up, and Rasha was tugging me down the scaffolding hissing something about not getting caught, and the last I saw of Altair was him barely managing to sidestep the blow and stumbling backward against the railing of the sparring ring.

Rasha and I half climbed, half fell to the ground and dashed away.

—

This is how assassins are made:

Some are found in the outlying villages—young boys, aged seven to twelve, whom Al Mualim chances upon as he had chanced upon me; he purchases them from their parents, if the parents are willing, and brings them back to Masyaf.

These he calls the gifts of Allah. I, too, am a gift of Allah; were it not for a thirsty horse and a spray of blooddrops in my grimy hand, Al Mualim would never have noticed me; but, as he says, these gifts are rare. Enough perhaps for Al Mualim to fill out the ranks of his Wildflowers, but the needs of the order are greater.

The majority of the assassins are themselves children of assassins. There are families in Masyaf, like Kaddar's, who have been sending sons to the assassin's order for generations upon generations; Al Mualim goes to them, when a son is twelve years old, to determine suitability. If they show promise, training begins at thirteen.

For the next three years, they are taught the basics of fighting—the long sword, the knives, the crossbow, the fists. They are taught to read and write, if they do not already know; they are taught the use of horses and armor. Those with families are permitted to stay with them during this time. For those without—the gifts of Allah, or orphaned sons of assassins killed in duty—there are quarters at the fortress to accommodate them.

Then, at the age of sixteen, they are sent away for a year—to Damascus, to Jerusalem, to Acre—to learn the ways of the city from the bureau leaders there. If the bureau leaders find them acceptable, they are sent back to the fortress to be initiated as novices into the assassin's order.

If not, they are permitted to return home, or stay on as guards for Masyaf, although Al Mualim tells me this happens very rarely—the Masters have always been wise at the initial choosing.

So: at seventeen, the novices return to the fortress and begin training in earnest to become assassins. They are taught the lore of the order. They hone their fighting skills to a deadly edge. They learn how to stalk a target, how to read a crowd, how to escape from an assassination undetected—and to foster these skills, four months of the year is spent in a city, so that they might practice.

They are taught to revere the Master. They are taught the Creed. They are taught the use of the hidden blade—though few are ever granted the privilege of wearing it.

This is their final test: to follow the Master to some high lonely point in the mountains, and close their eyes, and leap off when he gives the command.

—

"He's all right," Rasha said judiciously, as we sat up late that night and related the story to Sarai. "For a novice, anyway."

"He's very good," I said, feeling irrationally guilty for being the distraction that had possibly cost Altair his victory. "They were fighting steel on steel, you know."

"For a novice?" Sarai was as surprised as I had been. "That is quite good."

"He's arrogant." Rasha seemed to have gotten over her fascination with him.

Sarai giggled, in the darkness. "They're _all _arrogant. Shadha says so. She says it's one of the shortcomings of being a man."

I was eleven, and did not yet realize that men have more than this one shortcoming.

But I would learn.

—

This I will say for Altair ibn La-Ahad: he had a great many shortcomings, as I would learn, but he had a great many virtues as well—and, in the end, none of us are ever wholly saints or demons.

* * *

A/N: Dear reviewers: you guys rock. And the favorable comparisons to great works of literature? They really, really made my day. 3


	6. Fortress: Stables

When I was twelve, my curriculum changed.

I had known it was coming; three years ago, Rasha had been summoned into Shadha's office, and she had come out with a green veil and a thoughtful expression. She never wore the veil, much to Shadha's despair—but it was expected of her, and eventually, it would have been expected of me and Sarai as well. So I was not surprised when Shadha called for me.

Her desk was, for once, clear of papers. Instead there was a veil and a dagger laid out upon it; I looked from one to the other, curiously, and Shadha smiled wryly and gestured for me to sit.

"I suppose you already know what you're doing here," she said.

I nodded. Rasha had told me.

"Well, then, I'll spare you the lecture on womanhood and modesty," said Shadha. "The veil is for you. Do try to keep it on; I keep finding Rasha's amongst the garden bushes."

I nodded again.

"The dagger," she said, "is also for you. You will have lessons on it next week."

—

The veil was a length of green cloth, edged with gold trim in a pattern of flowers, and I thought it beautiful, but after a day or two I could see why Rasha hated it; the ends went trailing everywhere, and they were always getting in the way when I ran—and it was difficult to climb up a wall and keep the veil on at the same time. Sarai, who had never done much climbing anyway, had less trouble with it. I, however, began to follow Rasha's example, and left the veil behind whenever I thought I could get away with it.

In any case, it was impossible to keep the thing on in a knife-fight.

—

We were twelve now, Sarai and I, and Al Mualim had decreed that other lessons would be added to our curriculum at this point. Shadha still taught us math and history and literature in the mornings, but now our afternoons were taken up in more physical activities—dancing, and sparring, and horseback riding, even for Sarai who would have preferred to stay in the library and read.

I will admit that I was nervous, my first afternoon; Sarai was not with me, for Al Mualim had decreed that we were to be trained separately, and Rasha was of course three years ahead of us, so I went to the stables alone to meet the novice assassin who would be my tutor. The stables were not in the fortress. The stables were down in Masyaf, near the city gates, and though I had snuck through Masyaf a hundred times, I had always been with Rasha, and I had never worn a veil that might trip me at any moment.

The novice, too, did nothing to alleviate my anxiety. He was sitting on a stack of hay in the courtyard before the assassins' stable, and he barely looked up as I approached.

I bowed to him, a little awkwardly. "Idris," I said, for that was his name. "I am Isra. Shadha sent me to take lessons from you—"

"I know," he said, sounding bored. Idris was a boy of perhaps fourteen, slim and gangly, with high sharp cheekbones and a crooked nose. He glanced up at me, and away again. "You're the _girl_. I'm supposed to teach you."

I waited.

After a moment, when nothing happened, I said: "Well, are you going to?"

Idris scowled. He stood up and looked me over from head to toe, as though I were a horse he had been thinking of buying. "If you start crying, I'm going to leave," he informed me.

It was my turn to scowl. "I'm not going to cry," I snapped, pulling off my veil and tossing it onto the haystack. Idris merely sniffed at me, chilly and disdainful in the afternoon sun.

"Warm up first," he said, eyeing me. "Run around the stable ten times, and then come back here."

—

Sarai had dancing lessons with one of the Sacred Blossoms, and she had had a much better time of it; dancing, after all, was a suitable sort of lesson for a girl.

"Don't worry about him," Rasha told me bracingly when I complained about Idris later, while we had our dinner in the garden. "As long as he teaches you, and he isn't being too unfair, it doesn't matter what he says. They're all like that."

It was a depressing thought. "Why?" I wanted to know.

Rasha shrugged. "Who cares?" she said. "They just _are_." She patted me on the shoulder. I winced; Idris had started me on tumbling that day, and my shoulders were sore.

"You'll have dancing tomorrow," Sarai offered. "That will be better, won't it?"

"And the day after that, I'll have to go riding with Idris," I said, morose. "I don't like him."

"Kaddar says he's good with horses," Rasha said. "That's probably why Shadha picked him for you."

I eyed her. "Since when do you listen to Kaddar?" I asked.

"I do _not_ listen to Kaddar," Rasha said, suddenly defensive. Sarai put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Rasha glared. "I don't," she insisted. "He just mentioned it."

"Since when do you _talk_ to Kaddar?" I asked, fascinated. In the dim light of the garden lanterns, it was hard to see her face clearly, but I thought she was blushing.

"Anyway," Rasha said, ignoring my question, "you don't have to like him. Al Mualim won't stand for it if he hurts you."

—

Of the three of us, Sarai was the luckiest. Her sparring teacher was Rakid, who knew us too well for jibing comments, and was too old for that sort of thing in any case. I would suspect, later, that Shadha had badgered Al Mualim into sparing a full assassin to train Sarai—Shadha knew all of us well enough to understand how painfully discouraged Sarai would be, if Sarai had had a teacher who sneered at her for being a girl.

Rasha, for her part, had started such lessons three years ago. Since then she had made her way through three novice trainers and was now on her fourth; she outstripped them quickly, and if she had been born a boy I think she would have been one of the best fighters at the fortress.

Eventually she would badger the arms master into teaching her the use of a sword. Shadha would throw up her hands in despair, and Khalid would cluck disapprovingly, but Al Mualim would side with Rasha when she picked up a blade and demanded to learn; doubtless she would have practiced on her own, if he had not given her a teacher, and Al Mualim would not run the risk of injury to his Wildflowers.

—

Two days later I was at the stables again, and Idris was there with a spirited gray mare and a contemptuous expression.

"This is a horse," he informed me.

I stretched out my hand to the mare. Her neck was soft and smooth beneath my fingers, and she glanced at me and tossed her head, as though sharing a joke.

I laughed. "I like her," I said.

Idris was scowling. "Get on," he snapped. "Do you know how to do that?"

I hadn't been on a horse since that day that Al Mualim brought me into the fortress, but I remembered well enough what to do. It was rather more difficult with Idris; he did not hold the horse still, and she danced about as I pulled myself into the saddle, but I managed it without too much trouble. Idris led the mare out to the field behind the stable. It was a bare, empty stretch of land, patchy with grass, and ringed all around with a low fence; he opened the gate, handed me the reins, and eyed me. "You better not start crying if you fall off," he warned me.

"I _told_ you," I said indignantly, "that I'm not going to cry."

It had only been two days ago, too. Either he had a very bad memory, or he was trying to annoy me.

"Fine," he said, shrugging, and gave the horse a slap on the buttocks. She flung up her head, startled, and went dashing off across the field. I grabbed the saddle and hung on for dear life, wondering what Rasha meant by _too unfair_.

_You don't have to like him_, Rasha had said; but perhaps it mattered if he liked me.

The mare leaped over a rock. I lost my grip and went tumbling off into the grass; she came trotting back to me after a moment, and touched her nose to my cheek in a rather apologetic fashion. I pushed myself onto my elbows. Idris was sauntering over.

"Get back on," he said. "Use the reins, this time."

—

Idris never did hurt me—not intentionally, in any case, and if he punched with a bit more force than necessary during practice, I did not blame him. From him I would learn how to spar; from him I would learn how to tumble, and fall, and duck beneath the guard of an opponent who was coming at me with a sword; Idris, in the end, was the one who refined all the impromptu lessons I had begged from Rakid.

Idris taught me about horses, as well—how to ride low and quick, like a courier, or stately as a grand lady, and how to stay on a horse who wanted me off, and how to clean a saddle or brush down my mount or muck out a stall or any of the myriad things that horses required. These last few lessons were, perhaps, unnecessary—certainly Al Mualim had never ordered them.

But all things are worth learning; Al Mualim had taught me that himself. And I was curious—and Idris, who disdained me—oh! such things I learned from him! Of blades, and horses, and how to get my way.

What did he want, this Idris? He wanted me to not be a girl.

—

The mare threw me three more times before the lesson was over, but she was sweet at heart, and I don't think she truly meant it; she was, perhaps, a bit too difficult for a novice rider, but I liked her anyway. Her name was Storm.

Idris showed me how to put her away after the lesson was done, and then we walked back up to the fortress together in cool silence. When we were past the fortress gate, however, I couldn't stand it any longer.

"Why don't you like me?" I demanded.

He looked surprised. "You're a _girl_," he said, as though that explained anything.

"If you weren't teaching me you'd be teaching some other novice," I said, mulishly. "It isn't as though this is worse."

Idris merely snorted. "You wouldn't know."

"You're a bully," I said, furious now, and in full sight of several guards, two scholars, and every assassin clustered before the sparring ring, I turned and punched him across the jaw.

—

Sarai sat with me in the garden and gave me a handkerchief, which I didn't use, and a honey cake, which I didn't eat. She had it instead, and when it was gone we tossed the crumbs to the birds.

"I wish I could train with you," I said. "Or Rasha. I don't like him, Sarai."

"Shadha says we have to learn separately," she reminded me. I scowled.

"I don't see why," I grumbled.

But Sarai wasn't listening. "Oh," she said, staring behind me. "Isra, I think—"

I turned around. Idris was coming toward us across the grass. I could feel my scowl deepening. In his hands he had a length of green cloth trimmed with gold; it had fallen when I'd hit him, and I'd been too angry to pick it up as I went stalking away into the fortress proper.

Idris stopped before us. "You forgot this," he muttered, thrusting my veil at me. I took it. There was a bruise blossoming on his cheek.

"You're not allowed in here," I informed him. "You're too young."

"The guard let me in to give that back to you," he said, turning a little red. And, "I'll see you next week. Don't be late."

We stared after him as he left.

"Do you think he'll be nicer now?" Sarai asked.

"No," I said, gloomily pessimistic.

—

And he wasn't—but from then on, Idris was a little more fair and a great deal less contemptuous; a small start, to be sure, but a start nonetheless.

Al Mualim reprimanded me for fighting, but gently, and I remembered him smiling from beneath his beard. I think he was proud of me.

* * *

A/N: Sometimes gender barriers should be broken down with a swift punch to the face.

So anyone remember who Kaddar is? Canonically?


	7. Fortress: Assassins

A/N: Forgive the short length, but the next chapter will be coming quickly.

* * *

Kaddar left for Damascus that year, and Rasha sulked for a good two weeks afterward. Sarai and I were careful not to mention it. Doubtless Rasha would only have snapped at us if we suggested that she missed him; in any case, Shadha did not give any of us the opportunity to ponder the matter overmuch, as suddenly—on top of the new lessons—she was assigning us extra tasks.

"Three reports have come in from Jerusalem this morning," she would say to us briskly. "Go read them, and give me the essentials over dinner."

Or: "I am expecting a courier this afternoon. Go down the stables and await him; he will have a message for you before he moves on."

Or: "Khalid has brought back news from Jerusalem. Speak with him, and tell me what he has learned of Guy de Lusignon, and the affairs that trouble his wife."

So we read reports and passed messages and badgered Khalid for information. Such a wide world there was, with kingdoms balanced on the edge of a sword, and marriages binding together crusader knights and Syrian queens—on the one side, Salah al-Din with his armies, marching back and forth across the land; on the other side, the Franks and the Germans and the English, with their fragile truces and their Knights Templar—and through it all the assassins passed, like shadows, dancing just out of sight behind the great players in this game of crowns and nations. They watched. They listened. They learned things, and all information they acquired, they sent to Masyaf, where Shada and Al Mualim kept their fingers steady against the pulse of politics that ran through the world.

And now we, too, had been seen fit to have a taste of this great stream of information that came flowing into Masyaf every day. Doubtless Shadha had planned it so; she could have read the reports herself, or questioned Khalid better than we knew how to do. Yet she wanted _us_ to do it, and we did, and thus we were given glimpses of all the tangled ties that bound the world together.

What was it like?

It was dizzying. Knowledge—we were cast out of Paradise for it, say the Knights Templar; one taste of the fruit, and Man went tumbling out of Eden. Perhaps this was even true, though the scholars of Masyaf scholars chuckled and shook their heads at me when I asked them about this. That is from the book of the heathens, they told me, and not the Book that is the Word of Allah; it was not for Knowledge, but for Eternity, that Man fell. Has not Al Mualim taught you to read the Qu'ran?

He had.

Still, I had never tasted Eternity; but I had tasted Knowledge, and I thought it the sweetest thing in the world—more delightful than beauty, more constant than love.

—

After a few months Shadha put me in charge of the reports from Damascus—not all of them, of course, and certainly not the most important or the most pressing—but I received missives from the assassin's bureau there, keeping track of the city's prominent merchants and politicians. For Sarai and Rasha, there was Jerusalem. The city was in turmoil; it took the two of them to sort through the piles of information that came into Masyaf.

But I had charge of Damascus, which put me in touch with Kaddar. I was the first to know when a year had passed and he wrote to inform the fortress of his return.

Incidentally, this did not put Rasha into the good mood I had thought it might.

—

"Oh, excellent," Rasha said gloomily, slumping onto the bench next to me in the dimness of the garden at evening. "Doubtless he'll make an utter nuisance of himself. I wish he were staying in Damascus."

"No, you don't," Sarai said from her other side. Rasha scowled and kicked at a tuft of grass with the tip of her shoe. Her veil was missing again.

"He'll be seventeen," said Rasha. "He's allowed in the garden now."

It was such an obvious statement that I could only peer at her in puzzlement; Sarai, however, understood.

"He won't take his pleasure with any of the Sacred Blossoms," Sarai assured her, which only made Rasha slump down further for some reason.

"Not that I care," Rasha muttered.

Sarai and I looked at each other. She shrugged. I sighed.

—

Unfortunately, the day Kaddar returned was also the day Khalid returned from Damascus after a successful assassination, so I wasn't there when Kaddar came through the fortress gates and discovered that Rasha had somehow badgered the arms master into letting her spar with the novices in the ring; I was in Khalid's room as he stripped off his dusty armor and answered my questions.

"This is most impertinent," he told me, though he was smiling. "Has not Shadha taught you that you should not badger a man the moment he comes through the door?"

"No," I said truthfully. There were bits of leather everywhere; pieces of armor I couldn't identify. "She told me to come and ask you if you had any reports from the rafik, and also if you noticed how high the price of cinnamon is there, because there is a merchant who wants to bring a shipment to Acre with our backing—"

"Slow down, little Isra," Khalid said. He was disarming himself now, his sword tossed onto his bed, his throwing knives placed in careful rows on the nearby table. "I hope your husband is a patient man, or else I fear that he may beat you. The price of cinnamon, I am sure, has been included in the report—" He paused and frowned momentarily. "Ah. I remember. My apprentice has it at the moment—"

"Your apprentice?" I'd had no idea that Khalid was mentoring a novice.

He smiled. "One of them," he said, reaching into his boots for the knives he kept there. "His name is Altair—I believe you have heard of him? But he will not be my apprentice for much longer; Al Mualim believes he is ready for promotion, and has already assigned me another novice."

Altair. Yes, I remembered him—dark eyes, like stars, and full wide lips that looked as though they never smiled, and an arrogant tilt in his chin—but, I think, that was less because I remembered him, and more because he was watching me from the doorway. I wished, all of a sudden, that I had my veil.

But this Altair merely cast me a glance before turning his attention to Khalid. "The reports," he said, bowing and holding them out. "I believe you asked me to return them to you when we reached Masyaf."

"Ah, the reports." Khalid took the roll of papers and passed them to me, absently. "Thank you, Altair."

"Master," Altair said, bowing. "I also believe you would find it of interest to know that your new apprentice is currently engaged in a swordfight with one of the women."

Oh. Oh, dear. That had to be Kaddar and Rasha, which meant—

I threw Khalid a swift glance. His new apprentice was Kaddar?

"Yes," Khalid said, sighing. "I was rather afraid he might be. I do not know why Al Mualim allowed Rasha to be taught the blade, though she is very good with it."

Altair was radiating disapproval. "If it is any consolation, they are both in the sparring ring with practice blades."

Khalid cast him a wry glance. "You know it is not." Then, to me, "Come, Isra, we had best go."

He went out. Altair followed. I trailed behind them both, the reports in my arms, and wondered why it was that Altair had not seen fit to acknowledge me.

—

Rasha and Kaddar were still in the sparring ring when we emerged into the courtyard, and I was still not tall enough to see past the men who had gathered there. This time, fortunately, I merely had to follow closely behind Khalid and Altair as they pushed their way to the front. I peered around them as we approached.

Rasha and Kaddar both held wooden practice blades. They were circling each other with identical looks of grim concentration, and after a moment Rasha moved in for a strike; Kaddar blocked, and then did a complicated counterattack, and they were moving back and forth across the dusty ground as the assassins of Masyaf murmured comments to each other about their technique. Khalid sighed. "She is too eager," he observed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Altair swung around to stare at him. "You aren't going to put a stop to this?" he demanded.

"Certainly not," Khalid said. "Her loss will be an important lesson for her. Stand down, Altair; you are skittish as an unbroken colt."

Khalid was right. Rasha was tiring. She did not have Kaddar's strength or stamina, or—had he grown while he was in Damascus?—his reach. Still, she was very brave to keep going, even as Kaddar managed to land glancing blows to her arms and shoulders; it was only when her practice sword went spinning across the ring that she put up her hands to yield.

Kaddar was grinning. "You've been learning the sword," he said. "I didn't know you could do that."

Rasha tossed her hair. I had to put my hand over my mouth to stifle the giggle; she was covered in dust and sweat, and she had just lost a bout in front of what was probably half the fortress, and half the fortress was _still_ standing there watching—but Rasha threw back her shoulders, and tossed her hair, and said, quite haughtily, "There's lots you don't know about me."

"All right, all right, get out, you two," the arms master snapped. Rasha picked up her sword and the two of them left the ring as two more novices entered; Kaddar was still grinning.

He stopped, however, when he saw me and Khalid and Altair.

"Master," he said, bowing.

"Hello, Kaddar," Khalid said severely. And, "Rasha, if you were my daughter, I would lock you up for a month."

It was Rasha's turn to grin. Her veil was nowhere in sight. "Then I am glad I am not your daughter," she told him, wiping her forehead with the back of her sleeve.

"That is unfortunately so," Khalid said dryly. "I may only suggest that you be locked up for a month, and my suggestion would doubtless be ignored. Next time, do not let your guard drop, even if you are tiring. Kaddar, come with me. Altair, you may go."

He strode away into the fortress, Kaddar in tow. Altair departed without so much as a backward glance. I looked at Rasha.

"You _did_ miss him," I said, a trifle accusingly.

"Don't be silly," Rasha said, her nose in the air, and marched off with all the regality of a queen.

* * *

A/N: Whoa! Hi, there, Altair!

The following info-dump may be a little confusing, so feel free to skip over/ignore if turns out to be too confusing. I make two references that I feel I might explain, but you don't need to get all the historical details to get the story. (Er. I hope. I mean, I thought I was pretty clear, but let me know if I'm not.)

Anyway, the first detail is about Guy de Lusignon and his wife:

If you're a particularly perceptive reader, you might note that Altair is twenty-five in A.D. 1191 when the game starts, and when Isra was eleven, Altair was seventeen. So now Isra is going from twelve to thirteen, which means that Altair is going from eighteen to nineteen, which means that the year is 1184 or 1185. This is important for the Guy de Lusignon reference.

Guy de Lusignon was the King of Jerusalem by marriage (yes, it was actually a kingdom in this time period, before the crusades happened and Saladin took over the city). The princess Sibylla of Jerusalem had married William of Montferrat (who's actually the _son_ of the William that Altair kills) and borne him a son, Baldwin V, who is going to be heir to the kingdom. Then William dies, Sibylla marries Guy de Lusignon, and Sibylla's father, who's still king at the time, discovers that he can't stand Guy. So there's quite a bit of intrigue where King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem tries to get Guy out of the way of the succession by making little Baldwin V his co-ruler sometime in 1183, but it was problematic, because Baldwin V happened to be five at the time, and Guy certainly didn't like it, and the whole thing was a tangled mess that didn't get settled until 1185, when Baldwin IV dies. Add to this the fact that Saladin was preparing to invade, and Rasha and Sarai certainly had their hands full at the time.

The second detail is about the Bible reference with Knowledge and Eternity:

In the Qu'ran, the story of Genesis is a little different than in the Bible. It isn't very coherent, for one; the passages describing the beginning of the world, the creation of man, and the casting forth from Eden are scattered across different surahs. If you piece the story together, it follows the same general outline as in the Christian Bible. However, there are some important doctrinal differences—for example, there is no mention of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Qu'ran. Rather, what Satan tempts with is the fruit from the Tree of Eternity: "But Satan whispered evil to him: he said, 'O Adam! Shall I lead thee to the Tree of Eternity and to a kingdom that never decays? In the result, they [Adam and his wife] both ate of the tree…Thus did Adam disobey his Lord, and allow himself to be seduced" (surah 20:120-121). Also, you'll note that it's Adam who is tempted, not his wife (I don't think her name is ever mentioned, so I won't call her Eve), but that didn't come up in my story. Anyway, that's what I meant by the whole 'book of the heathens versus book of the word of God' thing, and the symbolism between Knowledge and Eternity.


	8. Fortress: Gardens

On the summer that I turned fourteen, Al Mualim put my riding to the test. He called me and Idris into his study one evening and presented us with a letter.

"I need this delivered to a man who lives in Hama," he told us, smiling. "Go now, and go swiftly, and you may be back before sunset, yes? There will be dinner for you when you return."

"Master," Idris said, puzzled, as he had not yet caught on, "are there no couriers for this? I am willing to serve, but—"

"You have been teaching Isra for two years, now," Al Mualim said. "It is time to see how well she has learned."

Idris bowed, understanding. I took the letter, and we departed for the stables.

—

It was a journey of perhaps eight leagues each way—a quick journey, on a swift horse, and at this hour the roads would be mostly deserted as people settled down to dinner at their homes. Idris brought out Storm for me, another mare for himself, and we swung into the saddles and rode for Hama.

It was an exhilarating ride; the setting sun touched the rocky hillsides with gold, and the flowers waved to us as we passed by, and all around there was wind and sky and blowing grass. I loved the world then, because it was beautiful, because even Idris was smiling reluctantly when I turned to him and called out that the butterflies were colored like the sunset. "Keep your eyes on the road," he shouted back. I obeyed, but I could not help laughing at the sheer delight of it all. Even Storm tossed her head in agreement; we got along well, she and I, and I bent low over her neck and wondered if Al Mualim would let me play courier more often.

We made it to Hama, breathless and windblown, just as the first stars were appearing on the horizon. The man we delivered the letter to invited us in for food and rest, but we declined; Al Mualim was waiting for us, we explained, and he smiled and nodded in understanding. "Safe journey," he told us, as he accepted the letter from my hands. "Tell the Master that I will have his reply within the week."

"Yes, sayyid," Idris said, bowing. Then the door was shut and we were leading our horses out of the city—both to rest them, and because the guards had shouted at us when we had come thundering in at full gallop.

"I enjoyed that," I told Idris as we walked. He cast me a glance.

"You would not enjoy it so much if you had to ride for five hours in the dust and sun," he informed me. "Al Mualim does not send real couriers out on pleasure jaunts."

"I suppose I'm only a _girl_," I said, stung.

Idris scowled. "I didn't mean that."

To his credit, he probably didn't. It was not an argument we had had in years; still, I was offended. After a few moments of chilly silence, he sighed. "I'm sorry," he offered.

Which was so surprising that I stopped walking and gaped at him. Idris had never apologized to me before. He stopped too, and turned and faced me. "What?" he demanded, looking a little uncomfortable in the dimness. "You aren't so bad."

I still couldn't think of anything to say. After a moment's hesitation, Idris came toward me, touched my cheek with his fingertips, and pressed his lips to mine.

As experiences went, my first kiss was rather unspectacular—fumbling and awkward and crowded, with two horses watching us interestedly as we stood there on the dusty road. I pulled away after a moment, disappointed.

"Shadha would not approve," I told him.

"If you wanted to, Shadha couldn't stop you," Idris grumbled, but he backed away nonetheless. We remounted and rode back to Masyaf in starlight and silence. It was a great deal less romantic than I would have thought.

—

"I hope you didn't hurt him," Shadha remarked, when I told her the tale the next morning before our lessons started.

"No," I said. And, in a rush, "Will he get into trouble? I don't think he meant any harm—"

"I doubt it," Shadha said wryly. She was sweeping to her feet. "Go join Sarai and Rasha in the library; you will all three be writing essays for me on the changes Salah al-din has made to the iqta, and its impact on his army. I must speak to Al Mualim."

—

So it had been a test after all, and not merely of my skills as a rider. Soon after Idris was sent to Acre for a year, and Al Mualim put me under Rasha's tutelage to learn how to fight. But I had no more riding lessons, for which I was a little sorry; instead, Al Mualim apprenticed me to another of the Sacred Blossoms.

Her name was Almas, and she introduced me to perfume and flirtation and the subtle arts of seduction.

Which puzzled me. Seven years ago, when I had come to Masyaf, Al Mualim had brought me through a lamp-lit garden and promised me that I would have a greater destiny; now, it seemed, he wanted me to be a courtesan.

—

"Almas has given me her report on your studies, Isra."

I said nothing. Al Mualim had called me to his study; around us were books and maps and papers, parchment and ink, the faint rustling of cloth as the wind disturbed the curtains. I had forgotten my veil again. Al Mualim stood and paced, contemplative, and said, "She has said that you are quiet. You ask no questions. You do not contradict. You do not put forward your own ideas; you listen, and have an excellent memory for repeating her words when she questions you."

And: "I have never known you to be an unwilling student."

"I'm _not_," I said, and then covered my mouth at the outburst.

"Speak, Isra."

Al Mualim was not angry. I had never seen him angry; Khalid was there to shout at us when we did things like fall from walls, or suffer scrapes in combat practice when we were careless, but Al Mualim never shouted.

Still, he was disappointed, and that was nearly as bad.

"I don't understand _why_," I said—fourteen, and not entirely able to keep the mulishness out of my voice. It did not help that, in my lessons with Almas, I was not joined by Sarai and Rasha. They were learning other things. Rasha spent her afternoons sparring; Sarai, who had finally managed to coax a green sprig to grow in one of her pots—I secretly suspected it was a weed—had been apprenticed to one of the herbalists in Masyaf.

But I had spent the past few weeks learning how to apply face paint.

"You have learned history and mathematics and horseback riding without knowing why. For this—does it matter if you do or do not?"

All things are worth knowing, even if I had not sought to ask the question until now. "Yes," I said. Then, in a rush: "Al Mualim, if you wanted me to be a courtesan, you would not have had me learn history and mathematics and horseback riding—and—and—I do not understand. And I want to. And it does matter."

"I have never known you to be an unwilling student," Al Mualim said again, but this time with satisfaction. He turned, his black robes sweeping out behind him, and sat down at his desk. He smiled.

"I will tell you a secret it took me many years to learn," he said. "It is this, Isra: All men desire something."

I waited, expecting more. Nothing further came. After a moment of silence, I brought myself to ask: "What do they desire?"

Al Mualim chuckled. "I do not know," he said. "Different men have different dreams—some desire wealth, others glory, yet others intellect or virtue or an afterlife in Paradise. But if you know what they dream, you might make them offers such that they cannot refuse—_that_ is the true nature of seduction, Isra, not these petty lessons in fans and flirtations."

"Then why must I keep learning them?" I burst out.

"Ah, Isra," he said. "Have patience, and you will see. I promise you this: there _will_ be a reason, and you will understand when all of this has passed."

Al Mualim did not make promises lightly. Still, I stared at his table, not entirely happy. He saw this and sighed.

"In the meantime," he added gently, "perhaps you would like to spend some afternoons at the stables? Idris mentioned that you had a fondness for a certain mare. I cannot spare another novice for lessons, but if you would like to go riding, or perhaps carry messages sometimes, I will ensure that Storm is free for you when you ask."

That made me sit up. "Oh, _yes_," I said, breathless. "Yes, please—"

"But," and there was a note of warning in his voice, "I shall expect you to be a better student to Almas. Is that clear, Isra?"

"Yes, Master."

"Good." He dismissed me.

I bowed and departed, giddy with delight that I could go riding again.

—

It was strange, perhaps, that Al Mualim thought I should question my instructors; it was stranger that he would let me ride about the countryside—a young woman, unveiled and unescorted, carrying messages back and forth to the surrounding villages. Certainly Khalid thought so. Even Rakid shook his head at it, and remarked that I might become even more trouble than Rasha. Still, it was the most freedom I had ever had, and I loved it—and in any case, it was safe enough. I had been marked as being under the protection of the assassins, and no one dared to touch me.

In return, I studied under Almas.

What had Al Mualim said? _Different men have different dreams—but if you know what they dream, you might make them offers such that they cannot refuse._ That was the lesson I would have to learn, and Al Mualim taught by example.

* * *

A/N: Does anyone even care about the research notes?


	9. Fortress: Gate

A/N: Super special early update.

* * *

When I was fifteen, war broke out in Jerusalem, and the Crusaders came.

We had known they were coming. Information flowed in and out of Masyaf like water, and by then Shadha trusted us enough to let us see more of the reports; we had known it was coming, this war, and in her office Shadha spread out a great map of the land and used marked the movements of the troops with chesspieces as assassins and couriers rode in with information.

Shadha. She had always just been Shadha to me, mother and mentor both, but now I had a title to go with her name: Scarlet Acanthus, Spymaster for the Hashshashin. And her friend oleander, whom I had never met—she had been off in faraway Europe, watching the movements of the Knights Templar in France and the political maneuverings in the Holy Roman Empire.

The world was changing.

And now we three had work as well.

—

Rasha was the first to leave. She was nineteen and it was a bright spring morning when Kaddar took her away to Jerusalem after the siege was over and winter had gone; there were flowers pinned in her coiled hair, blooddrops and windflowers and tulips that Sarai and I had plucked from the fortress garden, and her veil was draped around her shoulders because Shadha had forbidden her to leave it behind. It matched the green silk of her new gown; she had dressed like a lady of consequence, with bracelets clinking on her wrists and a heavy gold necklace around her throat, and she was beautiful, and all the men stared at her as we walked through the marketplace of Masyaf. I wondered if they knew that she had knives hidden in her billowing sleeves.

We walked Rasha to the stables where she was to meet Kaddar. "I'm going to be a rich merchant's wife," she told us, grinning. In the sunlight, her eyes were sparkling with excitement. "I'll write to you on scented stationary with a golden crest and tell you all the latest gossip in the city."

"You'll have to send us presents," I said. I looked at her, a little blurry-eyed, and Kaddar was coming up behind her with two horses saddled and ready to go; she was leaving for Jerusalem, and Sarai and I were not, and I missed her already.

"You have to remember to wear your veil," Sarai said very seriously.

"I will, I will," Rasha promised, and hugged us both.

"Are you ready?" Kaddar asked. The horses were prancing impatiently, stirring up dust with their hooves. "We should go."

"Yes," Rasha said. She took her horse and swung on to it with practiced ease. "Al Mualim will send you out on your own adventures soon," she assured us. "And then we can come back here together and share stories, and it'll be like we never left."

"Isra. Sarai." Kaddar nodded to us from his own horse, and the two of them rode off. Sarai and I watched until they had disappeared beyond the city gates, and then we stood and watched some more, as the sun came up overhead and birds circled above us in the bright morning.

"She's wrong," I said. "Nothing will be the same again."

Sarai took my hand. "I know," she said softly.

—

Our lessons continued without Rasha, but the fortress was empty without her and our lessons were empty too—words and faces and lost histories, passing like shadows now, because we were meant to be out there in the world, and our time in Masyaf was just a long stretch of waiting while Al Mualim put his plans into motion.

By late summer the assassin who had been posing as Rasha's merchant husband had come under suspicion from Saladin's guards, and Al Mualim reassigned him and Rasha both to Acre; Sarai, sixteen now, was sent to Jerusalem to carry on what Rasha had been doing. She would pose as a rich merchant's sister—a real merchant this time, an ally to the Hashshashin whom Al Mualim trusted with the safety and virtue of one of his most valuable agents.

—

I braided Sarai's hair on the morning she left. They hung in two long, dark plaits nearly down to her waist, and in them I had woven flowers to remind her of home.

"I'll miss you," she told me solemnly when I sent her off.

"You'll have fun," I promised. "It'll be exciting."

"I'll still miss you," Sarai said, and she rode away from Masyaf with two assassins as her guards, a plume of dust trailing in their wake as they went.

And then I was alone.

There would be no one to pin flowers in my hair when I left.

—

Merchants. Al Mualim was fond of merchants. Trade was the lifeblood of any nation, he would say; trade bound countries together, and the rise and fall of empires rested on fleets and caravans and the exchange of coin. I was to be married to a merchant—a real merchant, and a real marriage, and I stayed in Masyaf long after Rasha and Sarai had gone because Al Mualim needed this merchant to trust him.

He lived in Damascus. His name was Tamir.

I would not just be dealing with information. Al Mualim had a specific task for me, with regard to this Tamir, and it took months and months to maneuver everything into place.

In the meantime, I waited.

Rasha sent me a jeweled comb through a courier who turned out to be Idris; he also brought me a stack of reports from the bureau at Acre, and then we avoided each other assiduously because for some reason he couldn't look me in the eye without turning red and stammering. Sarai sent me requests for strange herbs, and when I asked the herbalist for foxglove and oleander she shook her head, muttering, but provided them without questions. I went for long rides on Storm and badgered Rakid into teaching me how to throw knives.

And then—finally—a date for the wedding was set.

—

Shadha called me into her study a few weeks before I was scheduled to depart.

"I hope you know what goes on between a man and a woman in a marriage bed." Shadha's voice was wry. "Or, for that matter, outside of it."

"Yes," I said, wondering where on earth she was going with this.

She folded her hands in her lap and regarded me across the length of her desk, piled high with what I now recognized as intelligence reports from across three kingdoms. Some of them were written on scented stationary stamped with a gold crest: news from Acre. "And you know how children are made."

"Yes."

"And you see the connection?"

"Shadha," I said, "I remember what happened when you caught Rasha and Kaddar in the stables. And every word you said afterward." Not to mention, I added silently, Almas had been very educational when it came to these matters.

"And you understand," Shadha said, "why it would be inconvenient for someone in your position to become burdened with a child? And also why it would be impossible for you to avoid marital relations with this Tamir, who does not know your true nature?"

Ah. That was where she was going with this. "Yes."

"Al Mualim has a charm," Shadha told me. "This is not the sort of contraceptives the Sacred Blossoms use. This will render you…unable to bear children. Permanently, I'm afraid. But without it you will be unable to carry out your task."

"I understand, Shadha."

"Do you?" she asked. "Al Mualim promised you a greater destiny than that of a courtesan, this I know. But it is also a greater destiny than that of a wife, or a mother—and it precludes both. Do you understand, Isra?"

I did. I bowed to her, deep, because once upon a time Shadha had been seventeen; she had not had streaks of gray in her hair then, or wrinkles about her eyes, and she would have been young and beautiful, and someone had offered her a choice. Perhaps it had even been Al Mualim. "I understand," I said again. And, "Shadha—are you sorry?"

"No," she said. "Allah has given me many gifts." She was smiling faintly. "Three girls who are not my daughters," Shadha told me, "but I am proud of you regardless. Al Mualim awaits you in the hospice tomorrow morning."

I bowed again. It was a dismissal.

But I paused once more when I reached the door. "This charm," I said, my hand on the latch, my eyes on the floor. "Was it offered to Rasha? Or Sarai?"

"Both," Shadha said.

I considered asking what their answers had been. But really, there was no point; I was certain enough of the choices they had made. They were my sisters, after all.

—

The charm was painless. I woke in the hospice after an hour of dreamless sleep and went back to the garden. I was to have my measurements taken; Al Mualim had ordered a new wardrobe made in preparation for this alliance between the assassins and Tamir. Not that he would know the truth of it.

This was the girl he was marrying: Isra ar-Rashida, a rich man's daughter; she had lived in Damascus all her life, but was a quiet, sheltered girl whose father would allow no man to see her until she was wed. It would explain, quite conveniently, why this merchant Tamir would not meet her until their wedding day.

But she was also the delight of her father's eye, and so this girl had a fine wardrobe, and a finer dowry, and Tamir was eager enough for the money that he would marry me sight unseen.

He was not a poor man.

He wanted the money anyway.

I disliked him already, this man who thought I was a sack of gold, and I had not even met him yet.

But Isra ar-Rashida had fine gowns, costly ones of silk and linen, and shoes, and fancy veils, and jewelry in gold and silver and bronze—too much for me to carry on the road, so my measurements were taken and sent to Damascus so that my wardrobe might be assembled there. The same thing had been done for Rasha and Sarai when they had left. So much money, and all of it spent on young girls who were not truly getting married and in all likelihood never would be—but the assassins were not poor, and with regard to us Al Mualim spared no expense. We had lies to spin, all three of us, and those stories would be better made if we had the clothing to match.

Perhaps it was strange that assassins would even care about these things. But then, as I have said, the Hashshashin is not a military order.

* * *

A/N: I know I just put up a chapter yesterday, but this one is to thank all the nice people who left reviews. I was getting kind of discouraged, but you know what, you guys make me happy that I have readers who care. Research notes are back too! Feel free to skip if they make your eyes glaze over. :)

The "war broke out in Jerusalem" in the first line is a reference to the beginning of the crusades. Remember Guy de Lusignon and his father-in-law issues? Well, his father-in-law dies. Then his stepson (the toddler king) also dies, and Guy finally gets to be in charge. But then he has bigger problems, because now he's the King of Jerusalem and Saladin's coming down on him like a ton of bricks. In the summer of 1187, Saladin won a decisive victory against the crusader army at Hattin, which allowed him to capture a large portion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which, you know, made the crusaders very unhappy. Among the cities taken were Jerusalem itself (captured in a siege in the fall of 1187), Acre, and Jaffa. More on this later when we reach 1191 and gameplay events start rolling.

A note on terminology: I use crusaders here, and in the story, as a general term for the Christian forces. The Third Crusade didn't officially start until 1189 when England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire (essentially Germany) got their act together and mobilized. However, it was fairly obvious what was going to happen-the pope had issued a papal bull (sort of like a religious decree) calling for a crusade to take back the holy land, which the girls would have known about via their European contact. The papacy was pretty powerful back in those days. The Catholic Church was the only church around.


	10. Kingdom: Damascus Road

A/N: Special thank-you to Crimson Firebreeze for pointing out that Baldwin IV was Sibylla's brother, not her father! Sorry about that, guys.

* * *

It was spring again when I left for Damascus. In Europe, the Crusader reinforcements were mobilizing; in Tyre, intrigue brewed as the scattered nobles of the Kingdom of Jerusalem vied for power. But in Masyaf the mountainsides were sunny and calm and blooming with flowers, and up above the eagles soared against the cloudless skies, and on the morning I left a family of pigeons had taken up residence in a chink in the wall beneath my bedroom window; Masyaf had been my home for years and years, and I was a little sorry to be leaving the fortress behind.

But only a little.

I was a lot more sorry, however, when I met my escort.

—

This is Altair: tall and dark and dangerous, knives gleaming from his belt, a sash of red against his robes like a splash of blood; he was waiting for me at the stables, and his cool-eyed disdain when he looked me over indicated that he was not happy about it.

"Al Mualim has ordered me to escort you to Damascus," he informed me by way of introduction. "Let me warn you now: if you slow me down, I will carry you there in a sack."

I stared at him.

Altair tossed me the reins to my mount. "I hope you know how to ride," he said coolly, swinging onto his own horse. "Or else this will be an uncomfortable journey for the both of us."

"Of _course_ I know—"

But he had already spurred his horse into a trot and was disappearing between the city gates.

I decided I wanted to strangle him.

—

I caught up with Altair a few minutes later, when we were out into the countryside proper and I no longer felt quite so strongly about murdering the man, and he cast me a narrow-eyed glance and said, "You dropped your veil."

"I took it off," I snapped back.

"Are you _asking_ for trouble?" he demanded. "Put it back on."

It was a warm day and the roads were empty and I doubted anyone really cared, one way or the other, if there happened to be sunlight in my hair or not. But Altair seemed unimpressed with these points. "I did not ask to play escort to an empty-headed flirt," he said coldly. "Do as I say."

I looked away from him, out toward the horizon and the rising sun, and touched my heels to my mount. She burst forward into a spirited gallop. I smiled to myself and bent low across her neck.

It was two miles before I pulled my horse to a walk and let Altair catch up to me, and when he did he was furious and breathless and looked as though he was considering murder himself. But I didn't give him a chance to speak—or shout, or give orders, or whatever it was he was considering doing when he pulled his horse up alongside mine in a rage.

"Altair ibn La-Ahad," I said, and he looked a little startled that I knew his name. "You are a master assassin, black-and-silver on your sash, seventeen men dead by your hand since you learnt the Creed—but do not presume to tell me what to do. I take my orders from Al Mualim and no other."

His hands had tightened on his reins. "If you do that _again_—" he began, but I did not hear the rest of it because my horse broke into another gallop and we were dashing off across the dusty road. This time we went only one mile, though the mare tugged at the bit in protest when I pulled back on the reins.

"Don't try threatening me, either," I informed him when Altair caught up again. "I'll go to Damascus by myself if I have to."

I could practically hear his teeth grinding. Even if Altair hadn't been carrying a small armory's worth of weaponry on his back, I was slim and light and weighed considerably less; I could outrun him, if I had to, and he knew it.

And Al Mualim would have his head if he let me go to Damascus alone—doubtless he knew that too.

"You," Altair said through gritted teeth, "are the most infuriating woman I have ever met."

"Then clearly you've never met Rasha," I said wryly.

—

We stayed at village inns the first two nights, but on the third day we encountered an unexpected delay in the form of a contingent of Saladin's troops on patrol outside of An-Nabk. Altair had removed his assassin's sash, but upon closer inspection there was no hiding the fact that he was bristling with weaponry, something the soldiers were sure to find suspicious if they happened to lay eyes upon us.

So we hid behind a rock while the patrol passed. Altair sharpened his knives, and I leaned back against the shrubbery and tracked the position of the patrol by the plume of dust they sent up as they marched down the road. Altair's horse was nibbling on some leaves dangerously close to my ear.

"You have too many knives," I said idly.

"Only ten." His voice was cool. "And I wasn't expecting soldiers."

"Why not?" I demanded. "Guy de Lusignon has been chased away from Tyre _twice_ now, and he is looking for a new base—he might very well head for Tripoli, and then cast about the nearby villages for resources to support his new efforts. Of course Saladin would want to protect his farmlands." The plume of dust was drawing closer. These soldiers were marching exceedingly slowly. "He probably has more men stationed in An-Nabk."

There was the clink of steel against steel as Altair rose to his feet. "We can't stay in the village, then," he said. "We'll go around."

It was the longest, most civil conversation we would have for the entirety of the trip. I still didn't like him

—

It was two more days before we reached Damascus. We rode down a rocky mountainside road, and suddenly spread before us was the city—walls and towers and minarets rising up as we approached, grand and imposing in the afternoon sunlight, and I was secretly pleased with myself that I did not stop to stare at the sight. Altair would only have snapped at me for slowing him down, and besides, it would draw attention to us from the steady trickle of people coming and going from the city gates.

The city gates. There were guards posted there, warily watching over the crowd. I glanced at Altair. "How are we getting in?" I asked.

"You'll see soon enough," he said shortly, which was not a satisfactory answer in the least. But I had no choice but to follow as he maneuvered his horse around a slow-moving wagon and turned off the main road; he was my escort, after all, and I supposed that he had done this sort of thing before.

We left our horses at a stable outside the walls. Altair slung our packs over his shoulder and went stalking off without a word. I had to hurry to keep up. If he had did not have knives strapped to his boots and a longsword swinging from his hip, he might have looked like a scholar in his flowing white robes, but surely the guards would stop us—

They didn't.

_Now_ I stared. Altair reached back, seized my arm, and hauled me past the guards. Two of them glanced at me, bored, then away again, and then we were through the gates and into the city, a broad avenue lined with palm trees stretching out before us, people crowding everywhere, and I realized suddenly how much larger than Masyaf was Damascus. "Why didn't they stop you?" I demanded, trying vainly to wrest my arm away. "You certainly _look_ like a threat—"

"This is Damascus, not some provincial farming village," Altair said. "One more man with a sword will not make much of a difference. Hurry up."

He was high-handed and disdainful and arrogant, and I would have stormed off on my own if I had the faintest idea where the Damascus bureau was. Unfortunately, I was lost.

I followed him, fuming.

—

_All men desire something_, Al Mualim had said. What did Altair want? Wealth, or glory, or an afterlife in Paradise—

No, nothing so lofty as that. Altair merely wished to be rid of me.

—

The rafik welcomed us with open arms when we came dropping in through the bureau roof—or at least, he welcomed me with open arms, because Altair merely shoved me at him and went stalking off into the back rooms. "Isra," the rafik said, smiling. "I have heard much about you from Al Mualim. I hope you have had a good journey?"

"Altair was _insufferable_," I said, and the rafik laughed.

"He can be arrogant, yes," he said. "But come, you are here now—have some dinner, rest a while, and in a few hours you will be off to your father's house and Altair will never trouble you again."

The sentiment was cheering enough to make me smile.

Later I would sneak through the Damascus streets under cover of night, a novice as my guide, and meet Omar ar-Rashida who was my father; in the morning I would acquaint myself with my new wardrobe, meet my new maid, and introduce myself to the world as a merchant's secluded daughter; in a week, I would marry Tamir and begin to spin out the web that would ensnare him for the Hashshashin. It would be a grand adventure.

But I should have learned something from my five days on the road with Altair. Adventures tended to be long, uncomfortable, and filled with people I didn't like.

* * *

A/N: So I found myself writing Rasha/Kaddar, and it didn't really belong here but I wanted to post it, so I've started 'Appendices,' which is a collection of side stories that don't belong in the main storyline but which I thought were interesting anyway. Check it out from my profile page. The Rasha/Kaddar is 'Appendix B: And Pearls Rained Down.'

Notes: The opening paragraph was to set up the timeframe. In late spring of 1189, reinforcements for the Third Crusade were coming in from Europe, so, uh, this chapter takes place in early spring, before they've arrived. The maneuvering in Tyre ties in to the troops encountered at An-Nabk, which I will explain below.

So one of the Crusader states was the County of Tripoli, in current day Lebanon, and the capitol was—you guessed it—Tripoli. It was technically a vassal of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at this point, which makes it technically possible that Guy de Lusignon would go there and demand sanctuary, though all of that is pure speculation on my part. As to _why_ he would do that: well, King Guy didn't do too well at the Battle of Hattin, which was a crushing loss for the Crusaders and an epic win for Saladin, and Guy lost Jerusalem and a lot of the kingdom. He wanted someplace to launch a counterattack from, so tried to go to Tyre afterward, which was still Crusader-held, but Conrad of Montferrat (who had done most of the work of holding Tyre against Saladin) wouldn't let him in because technically Guy was only king-by-marriage. So Guy went and dragged his wife along, but Conrad still wouldn't let him in, probably because he was still upset about Guy screwing up so badly at Hattin. At this point, Guy pretty much threw up his hands and went, "_Fine_, be like that, I'll find a base _somewhere else_." Historically he went and laid siege to Acre, though again—pure speculation!—he could've gone to Tripoli, at which point he would have started looking around for food and such for his troops. And, well, An-Nabk is a village with lots and lots of arable land around it, and I'm pretty sure it was in the Emirate of Damascus (Saladin-controlled), and it was relatively close to Tripoli, so it would've made sense to have troops around for protection.

Oh, and Conrad of Montferrat is the son of the William of Montferrat that Altair kills. His dad even mentions him, in-game.


	11. Damascus: Tamir

A/N: In which our intrepid heroine acquirs a husband.

* * *

The week before my wedding was spent in frenzied preparations. This was my dowry: five chests of spices, jewelry in gold and silver and gems, lengths of silk and linen, two fine horses—on and on and on, and the total came to over six hundred dinars. More than thirty times what Al Mualim had paid for me all those years ago; if my father knew, would he be proud to see how I had gone up in the world?

Or perhaps my father had been a man like Tamir. Perhaps he would merely have demanded a higher price for me before he sold me off.

Tamir himself was tall and thin and impatient, and I met him on my wedding day when we were brought before the judge. In truth, I think he was a little surprised.

"She is very quiet, isn't she?" I heard him muttering to my father.

"Ah, but she has much to say if you listen carefully," Omar said, though of course making sure that Tamir actually took the advice would fall to me.

And then we were married.

—

On my wedding night my new maid left me in the bridal chamber all alone, and I leaned against the windowsill and watched the sun go down behind the city. Below, there was a wedding feast, and my father and my husband were toasting each other with goblets of palm-date wine; above, I waited, bored and a little impatient and far more nervous than I was willing to admit.

Oh, I was very proud—all the arrogance I had accused Altair of having, and a good dose of hypocrisy to boot—I had been taught by spies and courtesans, and I knew what to expect on my wedding night, and I had learnt all manner of fine things while at the assassin's fortress—surely I should not be nervous at the thought of bedding my husband? And I assured myself I wasn't. When Tamir came to me I was all lowered eyes and docility, soft voice and murmuring, and he nodded over me approvingly when he removed my veils.

"Your father spoke very highly of you," Tamir said tersely. "I hope you will make as good a wife as you do a daughter."

Had the man never heard of romance? Exasperation punched through my anxiety—no, no, there was no anxiety, because there was no reason for me to be anxious, so clearly I was _not_ _anxious_—though at the moment I did want to roll my eyes.

"I've dreamed of you, sir," I said instead, fey and a little ethereal, and all the while my heart was pounding and the tips of my fingers were going numb.

"Have you?" He sounded utterly uninterested as he began undoing his shirt.

"Oh, yes," I said, and it took no art at all to make my voice breathless. "From the day I was thirteen, I knew it would be you: a merchant prince, with a scar on your thigh, and one day you would meet my father in the marketplace and he would give me to you for your bride."

That got his attention long enough for him to flash me a frown. "Really," he said.

"Yes."

"How did you know about the scar?" Tamir demanded.

Because an assassin had followed him into the bath house and seen it there. I lowered my eyes again. "I knew," I said simply.

"Humph," said Tamir, but I had put in his mind the beginnings of an idea, and that would have to do for our first conversation.

—

_I hope you know what goes on between a man and a woman in a marriage bed_, Shadha had told me, and now I did.

Once upon a time Idris had kissed me under the starlight and I had thought _that_ disappointing. But now my horizons had widened, I had learned new things—and all things are worth learning, was that not so?

—

In the morning we breakfasted together, and Tamir remembered that we were married long enough to ask me if I were feeling well.

"Oh, yes," I said, wishing I could do _demure_ nearly as well as Sarai. "I dreamed of you, sir."

"Did you." It was barely a question.

"Sir—if you—if you have need of money, I'm sure my father would be more than happy to make you a loan—"

"There's nothing wrong with my finances," Tamir snapped.

Yet.

I remembered to lower my eyes. It was a good thing this first mission did not rely overmuch on my acting skills.

—

We did not share a room, for which I was grateful. Tamir had his quarters and I had mine, and he was firmly entrenched enough in his bachelor ways that he would ignore me for the most part, and, in any case, a neglectful husband was already troublesome enough in terms of orchestrating grand plots—I hated to think how much an attentive husband would have gotten in the way.

A week after I arrived, for example, Tamir rose early and had a very bad day.

Three caravans of his had gone missing. Two of his merchants had found other suppliers. The price of cardamom had plummeted. _Now _his finances were in shambles.

Engineered by the assassins, of course, but Tamir did not know that. He came home in a terrible temper and shouted at the servants. My maid cowered in my room, though she fled quickly enough when Tamir came storming upstairs to resume marital relations. If he had known I'd been rifling through his correspondence at night, he likely would have beaten me. If he had known I'd played a part in having his caravans waylaid and paying off the merchants, he likely would have taken me up a mountain and pushed me off—though the matter of the cardamom was pure luck.

But Tamir remained blissfully ignorant—or, considering the circumstances, perhaps not so blissfully—and I remained unscathed, and all he did, when we were through, was ask me rather acerbically: "Had any more dreams lately?"

Oh.

Oh, this was—a little sooner than expected, actually, and not everything was in place. "I dreamt of a man who needed a caravan," I offered. "He stood before a fountain at noon, and there was gold in his hand and gold at his back—"

Tamir snorted. "And do you often dream of such mercantile matters?" he said, derisive. But he would be in the marketplace tomorrow, and go to the fountain at noon, and look for a man who might pay him—

I wanted to kick myself. I shouldn't have said that. I should have stalled, told him tomorrow or the day after; the Templars were not ready, the assassins were not ready, and I had allowed myself to be distracted by his suddenness. "It is how my father made his fortune," I said, and waited rather impatiently for Tamir to snort again and get out of bed. The door swung shut behind him as he left.

I decided that I did not like him, this husband of mine.

After another few moments of waiting I rose and locked the door. Then I got dressed.

—

Minutes later I had slipped out of the window and was over the garden wall; Damascus was sleeping as I went across her rooftops, and the few guards on patrol through the city streets never thought to look up as I passed above them. But even if they did—in a worn tunic and trousers, all I looked like was a scrawny street urchin scrambling home, and doubtless the guards did not care enough to give chase if I did not cause trouble right before their eyes. Soon I was back at the assassin's bureau, dropping in through the roof into the cozy garden, and the cushions softened my fall as I landed.

There was the sound of a blade being drawn. I looked up.

"My dear," said the rafik, peering at me through the open door to the living quarters, "I really was not expecting you."

"I panicked," I told him, scrambling to my feet. "Rafik, I told him the contact would be there tomorrow, because he asked me tonight—I had not expected that he would ask so soon—"

"Then the contact will be there tomorrow," the rafik said genially. He sheathed his sword and came forward to take my arm. "Are you thirsty?"

"No—but Tamir—"

"Don't fret," he said. "It will be done, and your merchant husband will be none the wiser. Come now, Isra, do you think we assassins are so inflexible as that?"

"Well, no," I admitted, feeling even more foolish now. Within, the bureau was lit by lanterns, and I dropped down onto a chair as the rafik rummaged through the cabinets for a cup. "I just—I didn't know what to do. I hadn't expected him to ask for another day or two."

He poured me some wine. "Don't fret," the rafik said again. "You are not alone in this, Isra—oh, and letters have been coming in for you all week. Would you like to see them?"

Letters from Sarai and Rasha and Al Mualim—and copies of reports, nearly a week old by now, and it would take me hours and hours to get through the pile, and even then I would have to be home before morning, and after that how was I to slip out again, night after night, and check in with the bureau without my husband—or my _maid _—realizing?

Taking a husband was certainly getting in the way of taking in intelligence.

"Isra?" The rafik sounded worried. I raised my head from the table and looked at him. "Did Tamir strike you?"

I wished he had. After all, being beaten by my husband would be infinitely more preferable than failing this assignment, which might mean the triumph of the crusaders, the fall of Jerusalem, and, oh yes, the destruction of everything I held dear.

"Isra?"

"I'm supposed to be making him money and giving him contacts," I said, feeling rather fatalistic, and not _terribly_ hysterical. "How am I supposed to do that if I don't know where either is? Rafik, if I keep sneaking out, I'll be caught, and if I don't, I'll be caught _anyway_, because I won't know what to tell him—"

And, "I hate being married."

"Many people feel the same way," the rafik said. He sat down across from me with his own cup and sipped from it, contemplative. "I was married once, you know—a lovely woman, lovely. But she could nag like a fishwife."

"Oh," I said.

"Read your letters," he told me. "I will send a boy over tomorrow night with the reports, and he will come in when you are alone and leave when you are finished. So you can keep track of things, yes? And you will not have to come sneaking out again."

That was a good idea. I put my head down again, the wood cool against my forehead, and wondered how Rasha and Sarai had managed. They had never written to me in a panic because they could not think of what to do.

"Neither of them were as constrained as you," the rafik said, patting my hand. "Will you drink your wine? Or, perhaps you would like me to warm it for you?"

—

I crept back into my house—_Tamir's_ house—a few hours later, stowed my street-urchin clothes away in the false bottom of my trunk, and crawled back into bed with a cupful of warm wine settling uneasily in my stomach.

Reports. I had not even gotten halfway through the pile. If Tamir asked me at breakfast tomorrow, I could not tell him whether he should trade to Jerusalem or wait for the prices in Damascus to rise, whether Saladin needed supplies or not, whether silk should be sold or he should empty his warehouses or send men to Acre. I could not tell him _anything_.

How often could the rafik risk sending a novice over? Once a week? Less? I would be blind. Blind and deaf and insensate, and Al Mualim wanted me to lead Tamir on when all I could do was stumble forward through the dark and crash into the furniture.

It was small consolation to remember that I would not have to see Tamir at breakfast tomorrow if I did not want to see him. I could sleep away the day if I wanted to; a rich merchant's wife, indolent and useless, and doubtless Tamir couldn't care less if I ate or not.

* * *

A/N: Feel free to ignore my rambling notes, as usual.

Wife-beating: please don't do it in real life. It is a little sad that Isra is used to it enough to make jokes, but I didn't want to impose modern concepts of morality on this story, as it would seem very jarring. And like something out of a bad romance novel. Speaking of which: it's sort of a terrible romance-novel sort of thing to do where you demonize the heroine's first husband so that the True Love can come in and sweep her away and I really hate that particular cliché, but, well, canonically Tamir is kind of a jerk.

Throughout history, people drank a lot of booze—mostly beer and ale, since wine was expensive, but hey, the assassins are rich, aren't they?—because the water wasn't exactly safe for consumption. But putting in some alcohol killed most of the nasty germs that would give you dysentery and other things, way back when water filters hadn't been invented yet. Damascus did have a spring nearby to provide drinking water, but I imagine rich people liked their wine. And yes, alcohol is forbidden in Islam and technically we are in a Muslim world, but the ban was hardly strictly enforced, and again, rich people like their wine. Remember the Merchant King and his house party (of DEATH)?

Also! Many apologies for slightly fudged numbers with regard to coinage and purchasing power—I've based all my estimates on the twenty dinars paid at the very beginning of the story, and, well, it's too high to be really accurate. But I think I'm going to go with consistency at this point, instead of trying to fix the economic system now. Sorry if it seems off.


	12. Damascus: Bureau Affairs

A/N: Dear All: I love you guys. Thanks for the reviews. Really.

* * *

Tamir went out and met the Templar contact and came home in a thoughtful mood; gold he loved, above all else, and I didn't doubt that he would sell to both sides if there was profit in it for him. Still, betraying Saladin was a step forward that he could never take back. It would take him some time to ponder over the consequences.

Or perhaps not. I had misjudged the man before.

Should I advise him? Should I hold back? Oh, what an excellent agent I was, so clear-minded and decisive! I spent much of the day brooding as I waited for nightfall. I missed Rasha; I missed Sarai; I missed sitting in the garden at the mountain fortress of the assassins, when I not have a husband and a city to manage. I missed racing through the countryside of Masyaf on a swift horse.

—

My bedroom at Tamir's house was on the second floor, one of the inner rooms that overlooked the garden; it had been a storage chamber once upon a time, and even after Tamir had refurnished it for his bride, the hint of old spices still lingered in the wardrobes and chests, and the walls were uncovered and bare. My maid had frowned over the room when we had first arrived. The assassin Omar had been my doting father, and in his house I had had rugs and wall hangings, elegant lamps of silver and brass, carved sandalwood screens and exotic delicacies and fresh milk every day—she was a proper maid, my Nadia, and she cared for such things as the status of her mistress.

She was a proper maid, and all unacquainted with the Hashshashin.

Yet another thing to fret over—the fact that my maid might one day catch me conferring with a white-robed assassin and go running off to tell my husband. It was fortunate, then, that Nadia had her own quarters elsewhere, downstairs with the rest of the household servants. Doubtless, if she had roomed with me, she would be appalled to find a young man sneaking through my window in the dead of night.

Though to be honest—this young man did not so much sneak through my window as vault over the windowsill and then gracelessly trip over a chest.

"Be careful," I hissed, getting up to pull the shutters closed after him. "Do you want the whole house to wake up?"

I couldn't see him in the darkness, but I heard him when he straightened up and took a step toward me. "The servants are downstairs and your husband sleeps like a drunkard," the assassin retorted. "I haven't woken _anyone_ up."

"_Idris_," I said, incredulous. "What are you doing here?"

"Rafik Ibrahim sent me with papers for you." He sounded like he was rolling his eyes.

"No, I meant—oh, never mind." This was Idris—he would probably just refuse to tell me. I fumbled for the lamp. "Stay here, I'm going downstairs to light this—"

"Don't bother," Idris said. "The rafik sent me here with a striker."

That was thoughtful of him—the rafik, that was. "Be careful," I said again, handing the lamp over.

Our hands touched. I pulled away, quickly; there had been a kiss on a dusty road beneath the starlight once, and a half-stammered excuse afterwards—

But I was married now, wasn't I?

I sighed at the thought. Idris seemed not to notice any of my agitation; he was fumbling with the flint and steel as he knelt on the floor, sparks flaring as he worked, and after a few moments the lamp was blazing away merrily against the darkness. "Here," Idris said, drawing a sheaf of papers out from beneath his shirt. "The rafik said these were the important ones. And he also said to give Tamir some more encouragement—he hasn't set a second meeting with the Crusader contact yet."

"Oh, yes, because Tamir is so willing to listen to me," I said bitterly, sitting down on the floor beside him. I took the papers and rifled through them—grain prices, politics in Damascus, troop movements— "I can barely get him to pay heed even when I have gold to grab his attention."

"Seduce him," Idris said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

I looked at him. He had grown in the years since I had seen him last—he was taller now, and stronger, and there were knives on his wrists and danger in the way he moved. But Idris still didn't know me better than he had ever had. "I don't know," I told him. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." Guy de Lusignon was locked out of Tyre and Tamir was to sell him weapons; Sarai was in Jerusalem and telling me tales of the slavers and the Franks; the world was turning, ever onward, and I was more lost than I would have liked to admit.

What was I doing here, in Tamir's house? I served the Hashshashin, who served the will of Al Mualim—

But I had never known what it was that Al Mualim wanted.

"Perhaps you should ask, then," Idris suggested.

"Is everything always so simple for you?" I demanded.

Idris shrugged, the flickering lamplight glittering against the steel of his blades. "I'm an assassin," he said. "There is my target and my sword. What else is there, in the world?"

—

What else indeed, I thought gloomily.

This was what else there was: a maid who did not know about the Hashshashin, a master whose goal I could not fathom, a husband I did not like. Idris departed, and I blew out the lamp and went to bed; in the morning Nadia would wonder how the oil had gotten so low, and I would have to tell her that I had spilt it out the window, and perhaps, if I were very lucky, she might not ask me why I looked so tired.

—

Tamir came to me the next day, and—all of a sudden, without any warning—demanded to know if the price of grain in Jerusalem had risen. I looked up from the piece of embroidery I was mangling, a little startled, and said: "Not very much, since last month."

He gave me a flat-eyed stare. "And I suppose you had the good luck to dream of grain prices last night?" he demanded.

So that had been a test? I let my eyes drop. "Perhaps I dreamt that you would ask me such a thing," I said, demurring.

But Tamir was already stalking away. I doubted that he had even heard me.

When Idris sneered at me, I had punched him; when Altair tried to order me about, I had galloped away. And now Tamir was my husband, condescending and high-handed both, and I could not so much as fling my embroidery at him in frustration.

_Seduce_ _him_, Idris had said, as though it were such a simple matter as that, and I sat and wondered how on earth I was supposed to seduce a man who had no interest in me whatsoever.

—

Idris came the next week, and the week after that, and then it was time for Isra ar-Rashida to make a visit to her father after a month of wedded bliss. Messengers had to be sent back and forth; a date had to be set; an escort had to be arranged. I was a sheltered young girl, after all, and could not simply stroll through the streets of Damascus unattended—oh, no, I needed guards for protection and my maid to look after me and a veil to protect my face from the glances of lecherous men. Perhaps Tamir did not care for me, but he certainly cared for his own consequence.

And he cared for his standing in the eyes of my father. Omar was a very rich man and I was his only child; doubtless Tamir was expecting a large inheritance when the senior ar-Rashida died. How was I to seduce my husband? He only ever paid me mind when there was gold involved, and even then not enough to hire any competent guards.

My two escorts were large men, but slow, and neither looked very comfortable with their weapons. I had been out of practice for nearly a month, I thought irritably, and still I could likely have disarmed them both within a minute or two—perhaps not both at the same time, but nonetheless even my maid would be of more use if we really were attacked. Nadia, at least, would have the presence of mind to run for help.

In any case, we were safe enough. A shadow trailed us from the rooftops as we went through Damascus—protection from the assassin's bureau

At Omar's house he was there to meet us at the door, all smiles and open arms, and the guards were sent away to the kitchens with my maid where they would not get in the way, and I was finally free to toss off my veils and my docility and the doe-eyed look I was probably failing to cultivate. "The rafik is waiting for you," Omar said, looking amused. "He has news."

"Yes, father," I said, grinning. Omar was a tall man, friendly and effusive; the two of us looked nothing alike. I took after my mother, apparently. And: "If you have daughters, don't ever let them marry merchants. They will be dreadfully neglected."

Omar was leading me through the house to the back rooms where the rafik would be. "Yes, I saw your escort," he called over his shoulder. "But let me warn you, daughter, do not go looking for a husband amongst the Hashshashin. They will be no better, and likely a great deal worse."

I snorted. I was not so unacquainted with the assassins to hold such a rosy view of them; I had grown up in Masyaf, after all. "I'm sure they are," I said.

Laughing, Omar held a door open for me and bowed me through. Beyond was a small roofed courtyard, like the one at the assassin's bureau; it lined with cushioned benches, with sprawling potted plants at one end and a table at the other, and the rafik was rising to greet me with a package in his hands and something like a worried frown.

"Isra," he said, barely waiting for me to finish making my bow. "This came for you."

The package. Oilcloth and twine; I opened it, half-wondering if Rasha or Sarai had decided to send me a gift. It was a small wooden jewelry box, carved all over with a pattern of vines and flowers.

It was empty.

Frowning, I held it up. No—it wasn't empty. Wedged into a corner was a withered oleander blossom. False bottom, then—no, the lid—

The box came apart in my hands. Within was a slip of paper—ships, and knights, and commanders from Italy—

Saladin's spies would kill for such information. I looked up. "This came for me?" I demanded. "Are you sure it wasn't to be sent straight to Masyaf?" Where Shadha would know what to do with it?

"It came through Damascus by way of Tyre," the rafik said. And, "Idris. Any news?"

I jumped. Idris had dropped into the courtyard by way of the roof. "No, rafik," he said, bowing.

So Idris had been my faithful shadow. I couldn't decide whether to be worried or reassured; in any case, the matter of the box was a little more pressing. I read the note again—numbers and names, a neat, orderly list— "Rafik? Was there a letter, perhaps?"

"No," the rafik said, turning his attention back to me. "Those packages—they are meant for any of the Wildflowers. You were the closest. Isra, there is something else. Your husband, Tamir—he has arranged for two caravans of food to be sent to the Crusaders, and they have offered him a weapons contract."

He wouldn't take it. "Tamir doesn't deal in weapons," I said absently, tracing the pattern of the flowers on the lid. "He trades in grain and spices, and sometimes cloth—and there is a heavy tax on metals, besides."

"Isra," the rafik said. "You are to make this man a Templar."

Oh, yes, I remembered.

_Tell him you dream things_, Al Mualim had said. _Make him rich, and he will follow you. Make him a Templar, little Isra._

But Tamir would not listen, and I had no idea how to make him, and this was all coming apart too quickly to keep track of. A weapons contract. Of course it made sense—but how was I to make him take it, on the hearsay of nebulous dreams which Tamir did not quite believe in?

"Isra?"

The rafik was watching me. "The box," he said, gesturing. "The note. What should be done?"

The Crusader allies from Europe. "This needs to go to Masyaf," I said. "Immediately. Rafik—could you send a courier? And make copies for the bureaus in Jerusalem and Acre, and perhaps advise Al Mualim to try to get an assassin into Tyre? This is sudden, I know—"

"It shall be done," the rafik said. And: "Perhaps you do not realize this, Isra, but this bureau is at your command. You outrank every assassin in the city."

Behind me, Idris groaned. I turned around to see Omar elbowing him sharply in the ribs; I had forgotten that the two of them were still in the room.

"We have to listen to _her_?" Idris demanded. "She's seventeen!"

"And nineteen is considerably more mature, I'm sure," the rafik said, genial.

"I've seen her fall off her horse! She's punched me in the jaw!"

"Yes," said the rafik. "And I'm fairly certain she'll do it again, if you keep on in this vein."

Idris glowered at me. I stared at him, still too stunned to do much of anything.

I outranked every assassin in the city.

"But," I said. And, "Why? I've never—this isn't—"

"Such is the trust Al Mualim has placed in you," the rafik said gently. "Do you think yourself inadequate?"

I didn't know. Perhaps I was, though it hardly even mattered—Al Mualim had bought me into his service for twenty gold dinars and I could not abandon it now. I sighed.

"I think," I said, "I need to write a letter."

* * *

A/N: Al Mualim is of the 'sink or swim' school of pedagogy. Which is funny, because Altair can't swim.

You know what I hate? Guys. Guys who take you out to dinner and act really affectionate and pretend that they are totally into you, and then turn around and go: "Oh, wait, I didn't mean any of that. Wasn't that funny? Ha ha." But fear not, dear readers! I've already plotted too far ahead into this story to derail it into a men-bashing tirade at this point, no matter how much I might like to soapbox.

Notes:

1) Reinforcements for the Crusaders were arriving from Italy in early April—Sicily and Pisa were both sending ships with soldiers and knights, and Guy de Lusignon somehow managed to convince both of them to help him out, despite the fact that Conrad still wasn't letting him into Tyre. And, also, the fact that he totally got his ass kicked at Hattin.

2) Starting a fire used to be really hard. There weren't any matches in the Middle Ages. You had to lug a tinderbox around, and even if you were pretty good with one it still took a few minutes to get a light; most people kept a fire somewhere around the house to light things with. I'm probably making this sound more dangerous than it is—not like, a _fire_ fire, but something like live coals in a stove in the kitchen that you had to make sure didn't go out, because it was a pain to start it up again. Artistic license: assuming Idris is really good with the flint and steel. As for the lamp—remember the magic lamp from Aladdin? So, something like that. There was a large chamber where you would pour in the oil, and then there was a that you would light, and that was an oil lamp. The fancier ones were metal, and had that little thing that looked like a spout where the end of the wick would come out so you could light it, and some of them had handles, and caps to cover the hole where you would pour in the oil. The not-so-fancy ones were just a round bowl thing, probably clay, with a wick sticking out of it.


	13. Damascus: Templar Induction

A/N: So I am faintly affronted that anyone would think I'd give up on this thing. (You know who you are, don't pretend you don't.) Appendices B part 2 goes here, time-wise, and check out Sundown if you haven't already.

* * *

I could kill Tamir.

I really could—I could cut his throat in his sleep, or push him down the stairs, or slide a dagger between his ribs while his back was turned. If I wanted to be subtle about it, I could write to Sarai and ask her what sorts of poisons I might use to make his death look like an accident; if I wanted to be bold, I could strangle him with my scarf and string his corpse up from the ceiling.

If I were feeling particularly bloody-minded, Idris had taught me three different ways to gut a man such that he might linger in excruciating pain for days before he finally died.

Doubtless I was not the first wife to have ever entertained thoughts of murdering her husband, nor would I be the last. It's an old tale, I'm sure—a young girl, all full of hopes and dreams and ambitions, marries a promising merchant at the behest of the Master of the assassins to carry out a devious plot against the Templars in the endless shadow war between the two factions, and the girl is disappointed when her husband ignores her and even more disappointed when she remembers that she cannot kill him because the assassins needed him yet as a source for Templar plans.

Or perhaps that was only me, and not an old tale at all.

—

Perfume and incense and scented soaps, and my husband ignored me; henna in my hair and kohl to set off my dark eyes, and my husband ignored me; gauzy silk, gold on my wrists, the glitter of gems against my throat, and Tamir cast them a glance as though wondering how much they might be worth before turning away to his dinner.

Enough of this. There was my target and none of my weapons were working; enough of this fretting over gowns and cosmetics, this docility, this helpless sighing over dreams and visions—none of them were working, and I was tired of being ignored.

Mandrake juice in his evening wine, and Tamir looked straight at me for two days and two nights while I sat by his bedside and he lost himself in delirium.

—

The sun rose on the third day, as it had every morning since the beginning of the world, and amongst the sweat-soaked sheets of his bed Tamir came back to himself and gasped for water. I handed him a cup. He seized upon it as though he were dying—of thirst, of poison, of ambitions yet unfulfilled in this life—and afterwards he sank back against the cushions and stared at me wide-eyed.

Incense was burning on the brazier in the corner. The air was heavy with fragrant smoke; frankincense and myrrh, clouding the room all in a haze, and I took the empty cup from Tamir's nerveless fingers and set it back on the tableside.

"Don't be a fool," I told him. "You would not have died."

"I saw a sword," he said hoarsely. "A silver orb. The world aflame—"

"You would not have died," I said again, and Tamir fell silent and finally—_finally_—listened. "Why were you afraid? You would not have died now, not when you had such a grand destiny before you still. Why were you afraid?"

He was quiet.

"This I've dreamed," I told him. "You will become a Templar. You will ascend their ranks and know that you are one of the great men who direct the course of the world—a man such as Salah al-Din, a man the equal of caliphs and emirs—you will be a Templar, and glory will be yours, and gold beyond reckoning."

"Glory," he breathed after me. "Gold—"

And Tamir—this man who barely cast me a glance when I undressed for him—suddenly his face were all alight with desire, and his eyes were burning when he looked at me.

"You know that this will be so," I said quietly. "You _know_ that this is your destiny. Why were you afraid? Seize it up."

"My destiny—"

"The Templars have offered you a weapons contract. Take it."

"Yes—"

His eyes had gone glassy. Another moment or two and he was asleep, lust and delirium having taken their toll; I rose without touching him and shut the door behind me as I went out of the room

—

He took the contract.

Of course he took the contract; drugs and dreams and delirium, and it wasn't as though Tamir had never had delusions of grandeur even before I slipped him mandrake juice. He took the contract, and soon his caravans were smuggling shipments of weapons to the Crusader camps at Tyre beneath the pretence of bringing food to the garrison at Acre. Tamir so wanted to believe in this grand destiny I had spun for him that he did not even bother to question me about it. It would be so, _of course_ it would be so—this was Tamir, after all, and what he wanted most in the world—

And it was easy, so easy, to fix my eyes on his and speak all silver-tongued about the future he would never have. The price of cinnamon in Italy; scuffles amongst the Crusaders; tax rates in Jerusalem; what did he care for such things?

No; Tamir wanted to hear about himself. He was hardly unusual in that respect.

Such things I was learning! I sent a gift of perfume to Sarai with my next letter to thank her for the mandrake. What need had I for perfume, now that I had flattery and lies and drugs to bring a man to delirium?

—

Spring was fading into summer, and a Templar came to visit Tamir.

They sat together in the front room, leaning back against the couches at the low table, and I poured them wine and served them refreshments. Perhaps Tamir was showing off, now that he was no longer ignoring me—_see this, my house with so many fine things, and this beautiful woman who is my wife; I would make a worthy candidate for the Templar induction—_

Afterwards I knelt by the corner and listened to their conversation.

"A strange thing has been happening," said the Templar, absently turning his cup this way and that between his hands. He spoke in Frankish; his words, when he formed them, were slow and unhurried. "We have contracts with other agents in Damascus, as you might know. Of late they have been disappearing."

"I was not aware." Tamir's accent was heavy, but understandable. I wondered what spies they thought were lurking in the walls.

"No, it is not a thing we would choose to advertise." The man set down his cup and looked at Tamir. "Nonetheless, it appears that we have a position open amidst the ranks. Perhaps you would be interested?"

I peered up from beneath my veil. Tamir was contemplative; disappearances could mean all sorts of things—anything from defection to death—but ah, no, he was not worried. This was his destiny, after all.

"I am, as always, willing to serve," Tamir said.

"It is good to see that you are not perturbed. We need men of courage for the Templar vision."

I almost snorted, and then remembered that I was supposed to be Tamir's docile bride—and, moreover, that I did not know Frankish. "You honor me, Stephan," Tamir was saying. "Tell me what you require, and it shall be done."

The Templar man smiled. "At a reasonable price, of course," he said, and the two of them laughed as though he had said something surpassingly witty.

—

Three merchants dead—one had fallen down a flight of stairs, another had choked on his dinner, the third had taken an unfortunate tumble into the river as he was crossing a bridge—innocuous enough, if one considered that people died every day in a city as large as Damascus. Or disappeared, as Tamir's contact had put it.

But three Templars gone within a space of a month—there was no disguising that, no matter how subtle the deaths, and the Templars might be the enemy but they were hardly fools.

After all, they knew what it was that assassins did best, even if they did not know why.

—

"Tell me," said Tamir, "what was it that happened to the others?"

"They had been turned away from our cause," the Templar said. "Now they are dead. They were not steadfast enough in their loyalty when they were tested."

—

Ah, they were not fools, these Templars—to take credit for the deaths, and then use them as a threat and a lure all at once—

I could almost have believed him; he said it so easily, as though it were true.

Three deaths. In the Damascus bureau I had written down the names: _this one _and _this one_ and _this one_; three snow-white feathers against the countertop, bristling against my fingers, and the rafik had nodded gravely and said _it shall be done_.

There was no blood when a man drowned or choked or broke his neck; the feathers had come back pristine. Still, the gesture was traditional.

—

"We have need of your caravans," said the Templar, "But we have more need, I think, of your loyalty—and your silence. No longer can we be seen together. But next week a messenger will come with further instructions; he will take you to see my superior, who will assess you for suitability."

"If I might know this man's name?" Tamir asked.

"Have faith," the Templar said, raising his cup in a faint toast. "All will be revealed in time—and you shall see the grandness of our vision."

—

A week, and Idris was waiting on the rooftops when the messenger arrived. But there was no need for such subterfuge, as it turned out; the messenger came into the house, and bowed with his palms pressed together, and said to Tamir: "You seek an audience with my master, Jubair al-Hakim."

"Yes," Tamir said, coldly intent at the prospect of his destiny.

"Come with me," said the messenger. "I will take you to him."

* * *

A/N: My dream: someday someone will put up a rec list and something of mine will be on it somewhere. It's good to have lofty goals, huh?

Notes:

Mandrake is a real plant: _Mandragora officinarum_, which grows around the Mediterranean, and it was used for medicinal purposes back in the day. For example, the tenth century physician Abu al-Qasim wrote a book called the _Kitab al-Tasrif_ (_The Method of Medicine_), which was _really_ long, but somewhere in there he recommends using mandrake and opium as surgical anesthetics. Besides being able to knock people out, mandrake is also a hallucinogen, causing visions and delirium and other fun things. And too much at once can kill you! For extended effects, readminister at intervals to avoid death. Opium would also have worked.

Heh. At least the middle east had discovered the concept of anesthetics. The islamic world, at this point, was way more advanced than Europe-it had medicine, astronomy, algebra, all sorts of cool stuff-but hey, it's ok, the Crusades happened and Europeans came and took all this technology, in between lots and lots of slaughter.

Frankish is becoming Old French. Or, actually, it mostly is Old French at this point, but, I dunno, I just like the word—it seems a little more medieval.

The river that runs through Damascus is the Barada. (You may remember it from the game when Altair jumps wrong and lands in the water and _drowns_. Hey, if he can't swim, then why should some Templar merchant be able to?) The river creates the Al Ghutah oasis, which is where Damascus was built.


	14. Damascus: Jubair

A/N: Unexplained title change, yes. Sorry, I am bad with titles.

* * *

Jubair al-Hakim was a prominent minister, and Tamir's meeting with him must have gone well because not two days later my husband was departing to personally oversee a caravan to Jerusalem. I slipped out of the house that very night, a little giddy with the thought that I would not have to see Tamir for—oh, _weeks_—as many as three if I were lucky and the roads were bad and business held him longer than usual. I hoped, fervently, for brigands; unkind of me, perhaps, but Tamir was looking to me now for encouragement in a way that was nearly as infuriating as dismissing me out of hand. I had gotten used to his inattention, after all.

The rooftop entrance to the bureau was open. I dropped down into the courtyard, tumbling into a pile of cushions, and the novice on guard duty leaped to his feet at once. He must have been new; I had not seen him before, and he had clearly never seen me, because he was staring me down with his sword drawn and ready.

"You're not allowed—" he began.

"Yes, I am," I said, wondering if he was really going to try to take my head off.

"Oh," said the novice, lowering his sword.

An assassin poked his head through the doorway. "Well, that was a convincing argument," he said dryly. "Hello, Isra." And, to the novice: "You'd best go fetch the rafik before anyone else decides to drop by."

The novice, looking faintly embarrassed, sheathed his sword and hurried off. I blinked at the assassin. "Kaddar," I said, a little surprised to see him. "What are you doing here?"

"Everyone keeps asking me that," Kaddar remarked. "I've been running courier to Acre—hasn't Rasha been complaining about it in her letters?"

Rasha never spoke of him, actually; I rather suspected that it was because she liked him a great deal more than she would ever care to admit, even to me and Sarai. "She hasn't mentioned it," I said "Did you see her when you were in Acre?"

"Yes." He stepped back to allow me into the living quarters. "She's doing very well with the longsword. We're getting married."

I nearly tripped on the threshold. "—what?"

He was grinning. "I don't think she knows yet. It might take her a while to figure out—but she'll have to think that it's her idea, or else she'd never agree to it."

Yes, that sounded exactly like Rasha. I couldn't help but smile. "I hope you're nice to her," I told him, sinking down into a chair. "If you make her unhappy, I'll have you thrown into the river."

"You sound like Sarai," Kaddar said, looking perfectly cheerful despite this multiple threats to his life. "Only she said something along the lines of poisoning my wine. Or perhaps exposing me to the regent and letting him hang me from the city walls—"

"I could get you in trouble with the city garrison," I offered. "They would chase you down and run you through."

"Please, try not to involve the guards in this," the rafik said, emerging from the other end of the room. "There are always the most troublesome investigations afterwards. Isra, I did not expect to see you so soon. Do you have news?"

I bowed to him, brief. "Yes," I said. "Guy de Lusignon is going to lay siege to Acre."

—

It had not been such a fiendishly clever plot to unravel. The King of Jerusalem no longer held the city and he desperately wanted it back; he needed a position from which to assault it, and there were only so many that he could use, and Acre, with its well-protected harbor for his European allies, would make a good start for his campaign. From there he could go south to Arsuf and Jaffa, then east to Jerusalem itself—with his ships, the coast was more easily defended—and in any case Tamir and his associates had been sending weapons in that direction over the past few weeks—

"Kaddar," the rafik said, "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but there is no need to go riding off to Acre this very minute."

"There's going to be a _siege_," Kaddar said, looking fairly upset. He was on his feet, looming over the map we had drawn up, and, indeed, he looked prepared to go to Acre _right now_. "The bureau needs to relocate—"

"We have some time." The rafik glanced at me. "How long, Isra?"

"I can't be certain—"

"Your best estimate, then."

I considered. Troop mobilizations and supply lines and logistics—and getting his allies into agreement— "A month," I said at last. "Perhaps until August, even. But we should not delay."

—

August came.

Rasha made it out of Acre before the siege began, and Shadha went to Cairo, and I had an affair with Jubair al-Hakim.

Of the three, perhaps the second was the most surprising. There was little warning; a week after the Crusaders marched on Acre, a message came from Masyaf explaining that Shadha was needed to keep watch over the brewing politics at Salah al-Din's court. I—and Rasha, and Sarai—would report to Al Mualim directly now. Understandable, perhaps, that Al Mualim would want to know what Salah al-Din was planning—still, it seemed a little strange, as much of this planning would be taking place in war camps as his armies marched.

But I supposed that there was Rasha to keep an eye on the war camps now that she did not have a city to oversee.

—

Of the three, the third should not have been surprising at all. What else was I to do when Tamir was away so often for business? There were more contracts, contracts that required his extended absence so that he might supervise the transactions in person—contracts that came from a man named Abu'l Nuquod, in fact, who was overseer of the merchants for the Templars here. But I was unaware of such things.

There were things that Tamir kept from his wife. She would not know, for example, that he was smuggling slaves to Jerusalem or opium to the Crusaders; half-prophetic she might be, but Tamir's wife did not have the resources of the Hashshashin at her disposal. There was no Sarai writing to tell her about Talal, no spies to track her husband's caravans, and Tamir might look to me for false assurances but he would hardly burden my delicate constitution with tales of drugs and slave trafficking.

And Tamir would certainly not tell me about Abu'l Nuquod.

Abu'l Nuquod: the Merchant King, he was called, and it was a fitting title; he was a wealthy man, the wealthiest in all of Damascus, and he had almost as much power of the governor himself. There were whispered stories told of the sorts of festivities he enjoyed, this Merchant King—stories of scandals and corruption and secret perversions—the sort of tales that could ruin an ordinary merchant, the sort of tales that were most definitely not the kind Tamir would want his wife to hear of.

Tamir never spoke of his association with the Merchant King, and I was a docile bride and would not go rummaging through his letters for such information, and so when I grew tired of having my husband gone for such long stretches at a time, it was to Jubair that I directed my complaints.

Jubair, at least, was respectable. He might be a Templar, but he was also the head of the scholars of Damascus—and his reputation was above reproach.

—

Tamir departed on another journey a few weeks after the siege began. The day after he left, I summoned my maid and announced that we were going out.

Nadia stared at me. "O—out?" she stammered. "But why—and where—"

"We're going to visit a scholar," I said.

"But—"

"Or you can stay here, if you like."

And of course she could not let me go out alone, so my maid accompanied me—protesting all the way—as I went to the Madrasah al-Kallasah to seek out Jubair. She had never seen me so defiant before. I hoped she wouldn't faint.

The Madrasah's gate was open, but a scholar moved to stop us when we entered. "Hold!" he called out, frowning. "You can't come in here—who are you?"

"My name is none of your business," I said, and tilted up my chin at a haughty angle. "I am here to see Jubair al-Hakim, who has done me a great wrong—"

"What?" The scholar was apparently determined to be difficult. "No, he can't have—"

I let out a wail. The scholar shut his mouth, startled, and I pressed my advantaged before he could recover. "He has taken my husband from me!" I cried, high and shrill and unnecessarily loud. "He is sent out to distant cities, and I might as well be a widow for all that I see him! Ah, is this what you scholars do? You break apart families, and all for some mysterious cause that you will not explain! Will you deny me this justification for what he has done?"

It was an inelegant speech, but the words hardly mattered; I suspected that, to any man, one woman's shrieking sounded the same as any other's. The scholar was looking rather stunned. Nadia was staring at me wide-eyed, doubtless shocked that I cared about Tamir at all.

I gave one last wail and burst into tears.

"Oh, please—please don't—" Now the scholar looked as though he were trying not to panic. "Just—come inside, I'll take you to see him right away—"

—

I stopped crying when I met Jubair. He did not seem the type to be swayed by tears and wailing, though he seemed sympathetic enough as he took me into his study and shut the door behind us. "So you are Tamir's wife," he said, turning back to me. "He has never spoken of you."

I would have been shocked if he had. "Then I have you at a disadvantage," I said. "Tamir has often spoken of you."

His eyebrows went up. "Then surely he must also have explained why he is needed elsewhere?" Jubair asked.

"Hints and vagaries," I said, dismissive, and glanced about. Jubair's study was an imposing room; there was a great arched window directly behind the desk, and to either side the walls were lined with high shelves and crowded with books. "Never a good reason—"

"And what sort of reason would satisfy you?"

"If he were doing this for—for some greater good," I said. "Wealth he has in plenty, but if I knew that he were making this world a better place, then perhaps I could be content with being apart from him for so long."

"Perhaps he is working on something greater than you know," Jubair said, watching me carefully.

I almost smiled. He wore the red-black-gold of the Damascus scholars, gleaming bright in the sun, but beneath it all he was a Templar through and through—and they all had a grand vision, didn't they? Power. Control. All the world beneath their heel, one way or the other, and they would begin by destroying Saladin. "Will you tell me what it is, then?" I asked, coming up to him, close. "You send my husband out on these errands—surely there is some vision you have, some purpose to all of this?"

He hesitated, wanting to speak but knowing that he should not. Ah, how to draw him out? He was a scholar—the head of the Illuminated, the chief scholar of Damascus—he dealt in knowledge and philosophy of all kinds, and forbade those he thought dangerous—

"—perhaps you are making a new world," I said. "A new republic, where the virtuous will rule over the rest, where the men of gold and silver will watch over those of bronze and clay—"

Close. Close enough to the Templar vision that his eyes were suddenly gleaming. "—and there will be justice in every man and every city," Jubair said, and I could feel his silence crumbling. "You have been reading that heretic Plato."

I did smile this time; it hardly mattered, Jubair would not notice such things now. "Heretic?" I said. "Was he not born far before the time of the Last Prophet? Pagan, I would say—but no heretic. And was he not a man of great vision?"

"There are truer visions than his." There were more words on his tongue; I saw him swallow them back with difficulty. Oh, they had such visions, these Templars—they believed so _fervently_ that they could not fathom how someone else might disagree once they had been shown the truth. "We should not be discussing this—"

I gave him one of the looks that Almas had taught me to use—earnest and wide-eyed and full of longing—and his resolve cracked like delicate porcelain shattering.

"—but what is the harm?" he murmured, almost to himself. Forbidden knowledge; too dangerous for the populace to know, but Jubair was a scholar after all, and how could he resist the temptation for such a debate that might win me to his side? "Come. Give me your name, Tamir's wife, and I shall show you truth unsullied."

—

That was not the last I saw of Jubair al-Hakim. We did have an affair, after all; the very next day an invitation came to visit him again, and another invitation the week after that, and they appeared with discreet regularity every time Tamir was away. Though she was unhappy about it, my maid remembered who paid her wages and kept her silence when I called on her to accompany me—and, in any case, Nadia never did see anything untoward in the things I did with Jubair. We only debated philosophy, after all; what was the harm in that?

Oh, what a game this was! I gave knowledge of the Templars to Tamir, and feigned ignorance to Jubair, and the scholar and the merchant each pretended an alliance with the other that was not there. Tamir was too proud to admit to the world that he looked to his wife to guidance, Jubair too vain of his reputation to let our meetings become public knowledge, and so the two of them wove me elaborate lies about the other and never suspected that they were chasing each other in circles.

"Jubair has ordered that these spices be brought to Tyre," Tamir would say, lying through his teeth about where the order had come. "And afterwards—"

"Afterwards you will be given charge of another caravan," I would reassure him. I had ordered an assassin placed in Abu'l Nuquod's household the moment I discovered that he was a Templar; news of promotions would reach me before Nuquod announced them to Tamir. "You will be well-rewarded for the risks you have taken."

"Good," Tamir would say, and when he had left I would go off to see Jubair who would claim at once that Tamir was delivering a cargo of food to Tiberias.

It was easy enough to resist the temptation to laugh; I had only to remind myself that my life depended upon maintaining this duplicity. But still, the absurdities piled upon themselves like the armies at Acre as the seasons wore on and one year turned into the next—it was such a dangerous thing I was doing, and it could all be undone if Tamir and Jubair spoke even one sentence to the other—but they never did. They never spoke, not for months and months—two years, nearly, and by the time that they suspected that they should, it was already too late for the both of them.

—

I recognized soon enough that Jubair played a larger role in the Templars than I had first imagined; he spoke to me of the finer points of their philosophy, of the power of words and belief to change the course of history, of correspondences he had with scholars in Saladin's court and knights in the Crusader army—things that a mere merchant like Tamir would never know. Jubair was informant and advisor to several high-ranking Templars, and it was unfortunate for me that he was not so naïve as to write their names down on paper.

It took me longer to understand Jubair himself, but in the end the truth was simpler than I could have guessed. Jubair was clever and arrogant; because of the former, he hated fools, and because of the latter, he could not stand those who disagreed with him.

But what he wanted, most of all, was assurance that he was _right_. He was right, he _was_, he _had_ to be; and yet, with dangerous books forbidden to the scholars of Damascus, there had been no one worth debating against to whom he could defend his beliefs. What was I, to Jubair? I could hold forth on Aristotle and ibn Sina and eastern philosophy, I had read tracts on history and mathematics and rhetoric, I could write verse as well as any scholar—I sat in his study and listened and argued, and allowed myself to be won over to his side in slow, tantalizing increments, and this hard-fought conversion was not something Jubair could resist.

—

I think he fancied himself in love with me, by the end. I think he might even have told me about the Templars, if there had been time—

But then Acre fell to the Crusaders.

I was nineteen, and news came to Damascus that the city had surrendered, and suddenly all the world was changed.

* * *

A/N: Wanted to get this up before I announce a lull. Not—really—a hiatus? But everyone knows what happens when Acre falls, and I want to make sure I've got all the kinks worked out before I slip up and make a really silly mistake. (If any of you catch any silly plotting mistakes, do let me know.)

Notes: Sieges _sucked_. They lasted a long, long time—months, maybe years, like the one at Acre—and if you were stuck inside the city, there was the obvious question of what the hell you were going to eat while the enemy army wailed away at your walls. Running out of food meant mass starvation, which meant riots, lots and lots of death, chaos, upheaval, and (gasp!) _surrender_. And meanwhile, you had to look outside and see the enemy burning your fields—that was also a pretty common tactic. Beyond the "starving to death" issue, there was the "plague and pestilence" issue. Medieval times, poor hygiene—you can see where this is going, especially if the enemy is intentionally sabotaging your water supply (like putting rotting corpses in it) or trying to spread disease (like flinging rotting corpses into the city with siege weapons), or even if they're not really trying at all (you're hungry, and there's a rotting corpse outside). And _then_, even if you did surrender, there was no guarantee that the enemy wouldn't just behead a whole bunch of people when they took the city. At Acre, for example, the Crusaders beheaded the Muslim garrison that Saladin had offered to ransom—though to be fair, in retaliation Saladin had all of the Christian prisoners executed, too—so I guess it was both sides being jerks about the whole thing.

The siege of Acre lasted from August 1189 to July 1191. At Acre, a pretty interesting thing happened where the Crusader army besieging the city got surrounded by Saladin's army that started to besiege _them_; Isra's reference to the armies piling up is pretty much

a) Guy de Lusignon arrives with his allies and sets up camp

b) Saladin brings not-big-enough-of-an-army-to-liberate-Acre and sets up camp after an unsuccessful battle

c) more Crusaders arrive, which means

d) Saladin brings in more troops to siege them

e) and lather, rinse, and repeat for the next year or so (seriously, I'm not kidding here, armies are piling up like dead bodies in a horror flick)

until finally the French (!) under King Phillip and the British (under King Richard, remember him as that big guy on that horse that yells at Conrad?) arrive by sea, make some decent siege weapons, and force the garrison at Acre into surrendering.

Not that things were so happy for the Crusaders even then; they had been under siege too, and they also had food and disease problems, and lots of important people died. Like, the Queen of Jerusalem. Remember how Guy was only a king-by-marriage? Well, for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to take his wife (_and_ his daughters) along into a period of extended warfare with bad food, bad water, and lots of rotting corpses, and then they _all_ died he lost his claim to the throne. Which, predictably, had led to a lot of bickering in the Crusader camp over the succession—you know, in between bouts of starvation and disease—and this continued for pretty much the rest of the war.

And that is why Kaddar doesn't want his girlfriend to be stuck in Acre during a siege.

Less depressing than rotting corpses: In the conversation between Isra and Jubair, they reference Plato's _Republic_, which is a book about how people should be just and virtuous men (men of precious metals like gold and silver, apparently) should rule over everyone else. It's actually very, very dull, but for some reason medieval Islamic scholars were fascinated with Greek philosophers—and lots of other philosophers, to be fair—and translated a whole bunch of stuff into Arabic. For the longest time that was how lots of culture came to Europe—they got translated into Arabic, cities got sacked in the crusades, the translations got shipped off to be translated into Latin, and that is why we have weird things like 'neoplatonism' developing in Europe that sound very little like Plato. The Greek originals wouldn't be directly translated into English for centuries, I think. A lot of culture and philosophy and science at that time came through the Islamic empires. Neoplatonism, for example, has something in it about souls divided in two and each half is looking for the other—which _I think_ comes from something in Plato's _Symposium_ where a guy tells a story about how people used to have four arms and four legs and two heads and then Zeus chopped them in half, and that's why we go looking for other halves. And originally some of these 'people' had two sets of male genitalia, and some had two sets of female genitalia, and some were hermaphrodites, which is why today we have men who cleave unto men, and lesbians, and straight people. Please don't quote me on the Neoplatonism part, I am hardly an expert on medieval philosophy (although feel free to quote me on the _Symposium_—every word of that description is true).

Ibn Sina is also known as Avicenna, and he was an influential Islamic thinker living in the 11th century.

…I can't believe I wrote such long notes. They are so…long. And they feel kind of unwieldy tacked onto the end of a chapter, but I don't know where else to put them. Suggestions welcome from anyone who has a clue. Also, if you've read this far through my self-indulgent ramblings on history and dead Greeks, then you definitely deserve a pat on the back.


	15. Damascus: Connections

A/N: Plot happens.

* * *

By May we knew that Acre was lost to Saladin. Rasha was writing me letters detailing the arrival of French troops and Genovese ships into the harbor; there was news that King Richard was preparing to sail from Cyprus; the city garrison was weakening, and the walls were coming down bit by bit, and Salah al-Din, for all his power, could not breach the Crusader camp.

In Masyaf, as ever, Al Mualim spun out his plans.

We had all known of Jerusalem; the mission had been in the planning for months and months, some secret thing that the Templars wanted that we could not let them have, and seven assassins were put to the task of retrieving this artifact. It would bring great glory to the Hashshashin cause. It would strike a grievous blow to Templar morale.

It would, Al Mualim promised, bring the world one step closer to peace.

I did not concern myself with it overmuch. I was still in Damascus murmuring honeyed lies to Tamir and Jubair both, and when Sarai wrote to me—complaining of unbalanced accounts and Altair's high-handed arrogance—I commiserated on the latter and promised to investigate the former, but Jerusalem was distant, distant, and not my province at all.

Until, suddenly, it was.

—

The first I heard of it was from Rasha, strangely enough. A harried courier came riding in from the coast with news that the Templar forces were on the move northwards, and then news finally came trickling out of Jerusalem about an artifact lost and a mission gone awry—one man dead, another two captured, another missing—

And then, for a little while, the messengers stopped coming.

I should have known, then. I didn't. Foolish of me, perhaps, but there were always couriers riding back and forth between the cities, and I had never thought to speculate on what might happen amongst the Hashshashin because I had never needed to. Al Mualim had always kept us in perfect information of what the assassins were doing; the messengers stopped coming, for a little while, and I sat and waited for them to appear again.

Robert de Sable and his men were marching up along the coast. Shadha might have known, perhaps, but Shadha was in Cairo, and I did not guess at where the Templars might be headed until it was all over and our plans had come unraveling.

—

It was July, and Tamir was home.

I had grown used to having him gone; when he was in residence my bedchamber was not entirely my own, and I was possessive enough to dislike the way he rumpled the sheets when he sought me out. Tonight, the door had barely clicked shut behind him—and I had barely finished smoothing out the bed again—when the shutters creaked open and Idris came vaulting in, louder than necessary and incredibly obvious in the light of the still-burning lamp I had yet to put out.

I yanked him out of the way of the window. "Are you mad?" I hissed. "Anyone could have seen you! Tamir's still in the hallway!"

Idris only looked at me, frowning in a way that I had never seen before. "You're needed at the bureau," he told me. "The rafik wants to see you immediately—you've already wasted enough time with that husband of yours."

"When did you get here?" I demanded. "Were you just _lurking_ outside all this while?"

But Idris only jerked his head in the direction of the window and slipped out again. Scowling, I blew out the lamp, threw on suitable clothes as quickly as I could, and scrambled down the wall after him. Idris was already on a nearby rooftop. His impatience was clear in the set of his shoulders, and it was a quick, silent, breathless run—strange enough that my curiosity had won out over my annoyance by the time we reached the bureau.

The rafik was already in the courtyard when we came dropping through the roof, and he was pacing impatiently. "Ah, good," he said, too grim to bother with proper greetings. "You'd best come inside—you too, Idris, we may have need of you soon enough."

I hurried to follow him as he strode inside. The lamps were all lit, and the room was crowded with books and maps, and there was a man sitting at the table who looked up wearily as we came in.

Rakid. He had watched over me in the Garden; now he was sitting here in the Damascus bureau with blood and dust on his robes and at his hand there were letters emblazoned with the crest of Masyaf—Al Mualim's seal, unmistakable, sent by special courier, and all of a sudden my heart was thundering. I stopped. "Rakid," I said. "You've come from Masyaf. You've been in a fight."

He managed the barest trace of a smile. "Clever as always, my Isra," Rakid said. "I have news for you, though I wish it were otherwise."

"Acre's fallen?" Which would not be enough to bring him here, like this. No, it must be something worse— "What's happened?"

"He has a tale for us," the rafik said. "Sit down, Isra."

—

The Templars had marched on Masyaf. I should have guessed, but I hadn't, and now that the siege was over and the fortress was safe I finally, finally learned the full of what had happened at Jerusalem. Altair's fault, most of it—recklessness and blind arrogance—and Al Mualim had the artifact once more, but a dozen men were dead and Rasha was gone from Acre.

"Gone?" I demanded. "What do you mean, gone?"

Rakid pressed his lips together, worry and irritation both, and said: "The courier rode through Acre out of Jerusalem after the mission went awry. She knew of Robert de Sable and his plans to siege Masyaf, and she went chasing after them when she heard—"

Rasha. Chasing after Robert de Sable as he took his Templar forces to Masyaf. She was dauntless but she could not possibly have been blind to the danger; she would not have had orders to abandon her post, she could not have decided all of a sudden that she could make a better courier than some other assassin—

"She went alone?" Idris demanded, sounding incredulous. "Why? The Acre bureau should have stopped her."

No. They couldn't have. "Kaddar," I said, tiredly; that was why, and it was not a question but Rakid answered anyway, though he was a little reluctant.

"Dead," he said. "Captured at Jerusalem, and executed." And: "I'm sorry."

I wasn't.

Captured and executed; what a fool he was, and I hated him for it. What had Rasha ever said about Kaddar? She had never told me anything of him; she had pretended she disliked him, she had turned up her nose when I teased her—

I should have been sorry but wasn't; he had never been _my_ lover, after all, and he was a fool to have gotten himself captured and executed and I hated him for it, and I was only sorry that Rasha had cared for him enough to have her heart broken when he died. Of course Rakid did not want to tell me—perhaps I, too, would decide to go riding off and abandon Damascus, and I closed my fingers around the splintered edge of the table hard enough to hurt.

"Did she make it to Masyaf?" I asked.

"Yes," Rakid said, and he slid a letter across the table. Al Mualim's seal on the front, and a blooddrop drawn in scarlet when I opened it, and it was a short, terse thing that said little of the attack on Masyaf and almost nothing of Rasha. _The sun's eye blossom has work elsewhere,_ it read. _She will not be returning to Acre._

Then there was a list of orders for me: arrange Tamir's death, protect the bureau from disaster, uncover the Templar Grand Master in Jerusalem.

And I was being promoted. Upon Tamir's death I would be released from Damascus; I could go where I might to further the goals of the Hashshashin, and moreover I had been accorded authority second only to Al Mualim's—I could command every assassin in the order, even Sarai, even men who were not in my city—and perhaps the responsibility should have been daunting but I was too preoccupied to be anxious about it. "So Rasha has been given another task," I said, bitter, and crumpled the letter up in my hand. "And Tamir is to die. Am I to kill him, then, before we can track down his shipments and find where Robert de Sable has hidden his camp?"

"You are not to kill him at all." The rafik sounded wry. "That honor goes to Altair."

Yes, of course—assign an assassination to the man who botched the last one so miserably. "Why?" I demanded. "Doubtless he'll do something foolish and bring the Templars down upon us—why is he still even _breathing_?"

"Al Mualim has spared him because he may be of further use," the rafik said, sighing. "He has been punished, Isra. He has been stripped of his rank and honors—but he is still Masyaf's best assassin. Altair has been given this death such that he might redeem himself."

"He can redeem himself by jumping off a cliff," I snapped.

Off in the corner, Idris made a sound that was something like a choked snort. Rakid laughed outright, and the rafik looked at me with a faint smile through the tangles of his beard. "Yet such is not the will of Al Mualim," he said, dryly. "Isra, there is a Templar in Jerusalem—"

"—who I am to root out. I know, I know." Rasha was gone from Acre just when the city had fallen, and Tamir was to die before we could hunt down Robert de Sable, and there were three assassins in the room all watching me and waiting for my orders. The world was going to pieces—but ah, this was war, after all. Doubtless it would have happened eventually; wars, like adventures, were long, and messy, and filled with people I disliked, because all the ones I loved went vanishing away into the ether.

It was my turn to sigh. "If a messenger comes from Jerusalem with news that Sarai has run off," I said, "I am going to throw myself off the highest tower in the city. Rafik, do you have a list of the Templar merchants in Damascus?"

"Certainly," he said, rising. "Isra, please do not kill yourself as I'm fetching it—that would be most unfortunate for us all."

—

We spread out a map across the table and set down inkwells at the edges to hold it flat, and Rakid laid down coins to show the armies marching. "The Templar forces should be here," he said, scattering a couple of copper pieces across Tripoli. "Here are Salah al-Din's men, moving away from Acre—and here are the Crusader ships that are still stationed in the harbor—"

It would be a simple thing to kill Tamir, but it would be much less simple to hold Altair's hand as he did it, and it would not be simple at all to do both and find a Templar in Jerusalem besides. I bent over the map and considered.

"How long until Altair arrives?" I asked.

"A week at least," Rakid said. "He would have ridden out with me, but he had—some business to finish in Masyaf."

Doubtless Al Mualim wanted to berate him a bit more. Still, it was not such a long time that I could delay; I would have to make my moves soon, if I were to move at all. I tapped absently at the map, considering. "Pressure," I said aloud. "This Templar will not come out unless we force his hand—"

"You have a plan, then?" the rafik asked.

"Yes," I said.

—

Feathers against my fingertips; two deaths, marked out in names and blood, and the rest of my orders setting up the pieces as though the world were some great game to be played, and Idris was riding for Jerusalem before the night was through. Afterwards, the rafik went off to rouse some assassin so that I might be escorted home again; the lamps were burning low, low, and I should have been worried that Tamir might return to my room and find me gone—but what did it matter? He would be dead soon enough, and I was too tired, really, to worry after a husband who did not even care for me.

I sighed and leaned back, away from the maps and ink and parchment. Rakid was watching me from across the table. "You look grim," he remarked. "You were not half so dire when I saw you last."

"Dire things have happened," I said. The Templars had won at Jerusalem, and I was sending Sarai into danger, and Rasha was missing and Al Mualim would not say where she was.

I missed the Garden. We had all been together then, and Rakid had taught us how to hold a knife, and I wished I were ten again and could badger him for tales about the faraway cities I had not yet visited—

"—and now you are nineteen, and telling a man you wish to see him in the Garden means something else entirely," Rakid said, rueful. "Have a care, Isra—you've grown since those days when you were still too tender a blossom to be plucked."

Yes. I remembered. "Are you sorry?" I asked him; because he sounded it.

He inclined his head a little in my direction. "Ah, well," Rakid said, sighing, and did not answer the question. "I suppose you could not have stayed young forever."

* * *

A/N: Isra is such a Melodramatic Teenager.

Did you think you were getting historical notes for this one? Haha, no. Silly readers, Dragon Age is out! And I have been playing it obsessively! And in two weeks: AC2! (I'm going to fail school.) I'll try to keep updating this as I've written out the next few chapters, but I may be too busy drooling over Ezio (and his sexy, sexy cape) to actually upload stuff. Apologies in advance.


	16. Damascus: City Bells

A/N: So today is apparently writer low self-esteem day. I am sorry to inflict this sad piece of writing on you, dear readers; it is trite and silly and poorly characterized and I can't believe anyone would actually enjoy this but that is my fault entirely. Forgive me.

* * *

Robert de Sable would be lost to us when Tamir died, but Al Mualim had given the order and so it would be done; find the Jerusalem Templar, he had said, and it was true enough that I could not do that if I were still shackled to Tamir, and perhaps Al Mualim had other plans for de Sable. Doubtless the Master of the Hashshashin could see things I did not—the value of a disgraced, demoted Altair, for example—

In any case, one did not argue with the will of Al Mualim, no matter how incomprehensible it might seem.

—

I arranged my husband's death with copious amounts of weeping. Nadia came to wake me late into the morning, and my eyes were already appropriately red-rimmed from a night without much sleep; a few anguished sobs later, and my maid was fretting over me, demanding to know what was wrong.

"Nadia!" I gasped. "Oh, I am so afraid—"

And she asked why, of course, but I would not tell her, and insisted that she fetch my husband instead. Nadia left reluctantly; Tamir, if anything, came even more reluctantly, pausing in the doorway as though there were poisonous spiders just beyond the threshold. "What is it?" he asked of me—impatient, but not so much as he might have been if I had never poisoned him with mandrake juice and lies. "Did you have a dream?"

"Yes," I said, weeping. "I dreamed of death."

Tamir went pale. All of my dreams had come true—as far as he was concerned, anyway—and, like any other man, Tamir was afraid to die. "You—Nadia—go downstairs and fetch some wine," he snapped at my maid. Then, as she hurried off to obey, he took three steps into the room and demanded: "Whose death?"

I drew my sleeve across my cheeks. I looked up at him through the tangles of my hair.

"My father's," I said.

—

Tamir trafficked in drugs and slaves and weaponry; he sold to both sides of a war, a merchant as ruthless as any mercenary, and profited from the chaos that was wracking the land; he was not a kind man, or a brave one—and I had known this when I married him. I had never liked Tamir.

Relief—_such_ relief—came washing over his face when I told him that it my father who would die. He hid it quickly enough, but there was no hiding the glint in his eyes when Tamir drew in a sharp breath and thought of the inheritance he might receive through me—greed, avarice—gold he loved, above all else, and I had known this all along, and I should not be startled or surprised—

I had never liked Tamir.

But: that was the moment when I first thought that I might take a certain joy in seeing my husband assassinated.

—

I spun Tamir a garbled tale of my father passing away quietly in his sleep, and of course he sent out a servant at once to verify my story, and of course he did not stay to comfort me. Nadia brought me wine and reassurances—she was a sweet girl, this maid of mine—but I sent her away. I wished to be alone, I told her, and Nadia looked at me worriedly but did not argue.

She shut the door gently after her when she left. I went back to bed for another hour, until the servant returned to the house with news that Omar ar-Rashida was dead.

—

The trouble with arranging such a thing, of course, was that Omar was still alive. A fairly apparent obstacle, to be certain, but it was a daunting one, and I had left it to the rafik to handle; I rather suspected that he had taken some body from the morgue and had it washed and covered before Tamir's servant arrived—but, in all honesty, I was disinclined to ponder the question further. Perhaps one day I, too, would be called upon to make such arrangements as hauling a dead man's corpse across half a city. It was my fervent hope that such a day would never come.

Tamir took it upon himself to oversee my father's funeral. He would have left, otherwise—there were shipments he needed to make, caravans he wanted to oversee—but now his father-in-law had passed away, and not even Tamir would so flout decorum as to go riding out from Damascus now. He would pay his respects to the dead first, and then tally up the estate, and then go to the Templars with the grand news that he was now a richer man—

It could have been undone, all of it, if Tamir had thought to check the body. But he did not. The body was wrapped and covered and looked similar enough to Omar ar-Rashida upon a cursory inspection, and doubtless my husband was too busy thinking of his inheritance to investigate further—in any case, Omar's servants were all assassins who would have stopped Tamir violently if he had tried.

And what reason would Tamir have had, after all, to doubt that my father had really died? He'd risen quickly enough through the Templar ranks, but not yet so high that he knew the full extent of their struggle with the Assassins, or the lengths to which either group would go for victory.

—

There was a burial, which I did not attend. There was a period of mourning that kept me inside the house for days on end; there were low, heated arguments between Tamir and Omar's associates when they met up together to divide my father's estate.

There were rumors coming in from the coast that Robert de Sable would not be joining up with the other Crusaders at Acre. There were messengers riding back and forth from Masyaf again.

And—finally—there was Altair.

—

It was noon when the city bells began to ring.

I was reading in the courtyard. Up above the skies were clear and the sun was out; beyond the high walls of the garden Damascus was humming with activity. The first sign I had of trouble brewing was shouting from a few streets away in the direction of the souk. Then: bells, ringing our bright and clear into the summer air.

I shut my book; across the courtyard, Nadia looked up from her mending and frowned. "What _is_ that?" she asked. "That sounds like—guards—"

"I don't know," I said. Which was true enough.

"We should go inside," Nadia said, looking worried now. "The bells only ring when there is danger. Perhaps a—a lion has escaped."

Yes, because a lion would come bounding over the courtyard wall to eat _us_. But I rose anyway. "Yes, let's go," I said. "I feel a little dizzy."

"Too much sun," Nadia said sternly. "And too many books, miss, you'll ruin your eyes with those—" She hurried me inside into the sitting room, fussing a little. Out in Damascus, the shouting had escalated. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I heard the clash of swords, the sound of boots pounding against the dusty streets as a chase ensued—

It was likely my imagination. Tamir's house was too far from the souk for me to hear that much.

But it didn't matter. The chase came to my doorstep soon enough.

—

There was the sergeant, first. A sergeant of the city guard appeared within the hour, come to tell me that I had become a widow, and I supposed that it was a mark of how high Tamir had risen in Damascus that such a courtesy should be extended. My husband was—had been—a wealthy man; he had been well-known amongst the soldiers to whom he had sold weapons, he had been the terror of caravan masters and tardy suppliers, and now he was lying dead on a cold stone slab in some morgue or other.

"I regret to tell you that this was no accident," the sergeant said soberly, his helmet in his hands. "This was a public assassination, carried out at high noon in the center of the souk."

"An assassination?" I said, faintly. "Then the murderer—"

"I assure you," said the sergeant, "every guard in the city is on the alert for this man. We _will_ find him. But madam, if you have any information on who would do such a thing, or why, I would—"

I swooned.

It was rather less dramatic than I had envisioned: my maid rushed to my side at the same moment that the sergeant leapt forward to catch me, each of them tripping over the other, and all in all the whole scene was an inelegant, chaotic mess full of elbows and knees and far too much scuffling. Still, it had the desired effect—when I opened my eyes again a few moments later, the sergeant was babbling apologies and Nadia was reprimanding him for his insensitivity, and I was spared from what would doubtless have been a lengthy questioning on my husband's more illicit activities. The sergeant, uncomfortable with fainting and weeping and other signs of feminine frailty, promised to return on the morrow—when I was more composed, perhaps—and beat a hasty retreat.

Ah, he should have stayed and pressed me for answers. It was lax of him to dismiss me so, something that Al Mualim would never have stood for—but I was a woman, above and below suspicion both at once, and what could I know of politics and assassinations and the powerful enemies that my husband might have made? So the sergeant left, and Nadia, weeping, clung to my hand and asked me what we would do now.

She was a sweet girl. I would miss her.

"Jubair," I told her. "Take one of the footmen, go to Jubair al-Hakim and tell him what has happened—"

"Oh, miss, I shouldn't leave you!"

I sighed. "Please, Nadia."

She left, reluctantly. It would take her a little while to get Jubair's attention—he was a busy man, after all—and then he would have to send out inquiries, and summon guards, and accompany her home—

An hour. Perhaps a little more.

—

The other servants were worried, understandably so, when they heard that their master was dead, but they left me be when I proclaimed that I had a headache and needed to rest. I retreated upstairs to my room, indulged in some sobbing for the sake of the maid listening at the end of the hallway, flung myself onto the bed and wept some more. At last there was the sound of her footsteps fading away. I sat up.

Altair was eyeing me warily from the far corner. There was blood splattered across his robes; he had not bothered to take them off. He had not even bothered to hide his weapons.

At least he had had the presence of mind to pull the curtains closed, I thought, annoyed. Had the man not been trained in such things as _subterfuge_? "Every guard in the city is looking for you," I hissed at him. "You could at least not wander about with blood all over your clothes."

"You left orders for me to hide here because it would be safe from guards," he snapped back. "Were you wrong about that?"

I had half a mind to turn him over to them myself. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

I rose and went to my trunk. Hidden beneath the false bottom was a bundle of clothes; I tossed them at Altair, unceremoniously, and he managed to catch them before they hit his face. "Get changed," I said. "There's water in the basin if you need to wash. And give me your weapons—all of the ones you can't hide."

Altair stood, scowling, and began unstrapping his sword. "Take care with them," he ordered, handing it to me. "These blades are not toys, to be handled lightly—"

"—and I am not some first-year novice who cannot tell one end of a sword from another," I said through gritted teeth. "Altair, the household servants are just downstairs. Would it kill you to be silent?"

He thrust a dagger at me in response. I took it from him with more vehemence than necessary and fought the urge to glare at him. He would only glare back, and then we would both stand there scowling at each other and doubtless Jubair would burst in upon us both and ruin my plans.

—

I hid the weapons behind the wardrobe and the bloodied robes beneath the chest. Out in Damascus, the soldiers would still be on high alert; Tamir was a well-known merchant after all, and even without Templar interference his murder would not go uninvestigated. And _with_ Templar interference—they, of all people, would understand that this was a gauntlet thrown, a line drawn in the sand, a challenge—they would have their own soldiers prowling the streets, doing a deeper investigation—

I sighed. Well. At least Altair looked a little less conspicuous without his blood-splattered robes and the small armory he seemed to carry everywhere. His hood was gone; his dark hair was tousled. His clothes were the most ordinary ones that the rafik had been able to find.

There was nothing that could be done about the scars, however—or Altair's faintly menacing scowl. "Be careful," I told him. "Can you get back to the bureau without being seen?"

He snorted. "Of course."

Arrogant, _arrogant_, and it had cost him at Jerusalem but still he persisted— "Jubair al-Hakim will be arriving shortly," I said. "That should cause enough commotion for you to slip out. Give the rafik my regards, will you?"

Altair inclined his head, silent.

I left him there, alone in my room, and went back downstairs before the maid should think to check on me again.

—

It was not entirely proper for me to be meeting with Jubair so soon after becoming a widow, but there was no help for it, and in any case Jubair was a married man and we were hardly alone. He came storming into my house with five guards and three servants and Nadia and my footman—and ah, we had sat in the sunlit rooms of the Madrasah al-Kallasah and debated such lofty things together, he and I, the merchant's wife and the chief scholar of Damascus—but now Jubair al-Hakim had one hand on his sword and his eyes were blazing with fury.

"Isra," he said, stopping when he saw me. He took his hand off his sword. "You are not hurt?"

"No," I said. And: "My husband is dead—"

"Leave us," Jubair snapped at the waiting crowd of guards and servants. They scattered. He turned back to me. "You're not safe here," he said abruptly. "I'll leave my guards for the night, but—"

"My husband is _dead_," I said again, cutting him off. "You told me—you told me of glory, of a vision for a new world—but you never told me of assassins or danger or any of—of _this_—" The tears came, quick and natural, and I wiped at my eyes and did not wail because Jubair didn't approve of extravagant weeping. "Tell me, Jubair, who was my husband that someone would want him dead? He was not the best of men—but what sort of trips have you been sending him on, that he would make such enemies as this? Enemies who would strike him down in the souk at high noon—"

Jubair reached out, touched my shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded it. "We did not mean—I did not know this would happen. But you will be protected, Isra, this I promise—you are innocent of these dealings."

"_What_ dealings?" I demanded.

But of course he would not tell me. "You aren't safe here," he told me, beginning to pace. "Do you have any relatives you could go to?"

"My father died two weeks ago," I said. "I—I have a cousin in Jerusalem. I could go to him."

"Yes. Do so." Jubair hesitated before me, looking torn. "Isra—"

I waited.

"—there is a man in Jerusalem," he said reluctantly. "A—a friend of mine. He knew Tamir. You should—go see him, once you are there. His name is Talal."

And I had been half-hoping that Jubair would give me the name of the high-ranking Templar hiding in Jerusalem. But of course he was not fool enough to do such a thing. I breathed out my disappointment; we already knew of Talal, but no matter, this information might be useful anyway— "Tamir never mentioned him."

"He wouldn't have," Jubair said. He looked at me, sighing. "I'm sorry it has come to this," he told him, his voice almost gentle. "I never meant—well. This—situation—will be dealt with, I promise, and Tamir's murder will not go unpunished. I will leave my guards and help you prepare for your journey to Jerusalem."

I bowed my head. "All right."

"Get some rest," Jubair told me. "You must be tired. I will make arrangements."

—

Altair was gone from my room when I returned upstairs.

But I saw him again soon enough; he came back two nights later, took his sword and his dagger and his blood-splattered robes, killed every last one of Jubair's guards and carved the symbol of the Assassins into the floor and stole me away from my late husband's house.

Jubair, I thought, would be furious—and soon all the Templars would know that neither they nor their families were anywhere safe from the Hashshashin's blades.

* * *

A/N: So some clever readers have been asking: why does Isra get to be in charge? Is she qualified to have that much authority? And the answer is: no, no she really isn't. I'm not going to say that she's _woefully_ inadequate for the position, because that wouldn't be true, but yeah, Isra could do with a few more years—or decades—of experience. But hey, the Master says she's in charge, so she's in charge. And we have to trust that Al Mualim knows what he's doing, right?

No notes again (sorry for this poorly-documented piece of terrible writing) because Dragon Age is fun. But super depressing.


	17. Damascus: Departure

A/N: Sorry for the delay. In other news, AC2 = awesome.

* * *

We came tumbling into the bureau as dawn crept across the sky, and the rafik was waiting for us as we came in; "Isra," he said, coming forward to greet me. "Altair. I trust you two had no trouble?"

"No, rafik," Altair said, bowing—which meant: no, not _too_ much trouble, because we had run into city guards halfway through and now two of them were lying dead in a back alley near the souk. Was this how Altair made all his reports? It was a wonder that we could get any information out of him at all, then.

"The guards will have to be bribed again," I told the rafik. "And Jubair—he will need to be watched closely in the next few weeks. Can that be arranged?"

The rafik was nodding. "We already have a man in his household," he said. "I have prepared a room for you here, and Sarai has sent a report from Acre—would you like to see it now? Or would you like to rest a little, first?"

I was too restless to sleep. "The report," I said. And, "How many men can you spare from the bureau, rafik?"

"None." The rafik sounded wry. "They are needed for watching the merchants you have named, for running courier to Acre—what are you planning now, Isra?"

"A journey," I said. "I'm going to Jerusalem."

—

So perhaps it was a little unexpected.

But Sarai was in Acre, and I was in Damascus, and the Templar Al Mualim wanted me to find was most certainly in Jerusalem—it made no sense for me to remain here, not when Tamir was dead and Jubair would be hunting for me, and I would be of much more use tracking down Talal in person. Ah, such plans are always so obvious when one comes to them; perhaps I should have thought of this one sooner.

If I had been Shadha, I would have—but Al Mualim had sent her to Cairo and asked me to find him a Templar. I ran my fingers through my hair, a little impatient with myself for being so slow, and explained this all to the rafik.

"It is a good plan," the rafik said. "Most of your plans are good, Isra; I have never pretended otherwise. But it would be dangerous to go to Jerusalem alone, and the bureau cannot spare the men—unless you would care to rework some of your other strategies?"

"No," I sighed. "No, I can't." Merchants and soldiers and Crusader forces—and assassins, in between—and I should have remembered how many pieces I held before spending them all in this one rush. I closed my eyes, considering. Perhaps—

"I can escort you," Altair said into the silence.

I glanced at him. Altair was watching me, arms crossed, cool and impassive as ever in the brightening morning; I could not quite make out his expression. "Don't you have to make your report to Al Mualim?" I asked. "I thought you would be returning to Masyaf." Now that my husband was dead.

"Al Mualim has ordered me to aid you," Altair said, shrugging almost imperceptibly. "The courier can take my report."

How generous of him. I sighed again. "Rafik?"

"Jubair will have the city guards searching for you," the rafik said thoughtfully. "This will take a few days to arrange, but it can be done, yes, and you should be safe enough if Altair accompanies you. Is this what you want, Isra?"

If it had not been what I wanted, I would hardly have asked it of him. "Yes."

"Then it shall be done," the rafik said. "I will see to it now—and you should both go to bed, I think, and get some rest." He bowed to me—it was still a little strange, seeing a white-bearded elder bowing to _me_—and went out.

—

I picked up Sarai's report from the countertop afterwards. An ink sketch of a blooddrop on the first sheet—then a good five pages of numbers and accounts and transactions tracked, always Sarai's favorite thing—

"Isra," Altair said.

He was still in the room, wasn't he? "You know," I said idly, flicking through the report, "when the rafik suggested that we go to bed, I don't think he meant that we should go to bed _together_."

"He did _not_ suggest—" Altair broke off, scowling, and there was something in his voice that made me take heed—but it was gone by the time I looked up again, and Altair was merely looking irritable. "I have something for you," he snapped, reaching over to pull out a slim wooden box from beneath the countertop. "Al Mualim sent it. Here."

He passed it to me. Curious, I set down the report, undid the latch, folded back the top and peered within. "Jewelry," I remarked, a little surprised. Not particularly extravagant jewelry, either—a small, flat piece of silver on a chain, and when I picked it up it was light almost the point of weightlessness in my hand. I turned the pendant over. On the back was an inscription: _for discretion_, it read, which was mysterious enough, but Al Mualim apparently had a high enough opinion of my deductive skills that he had not bothered to include a note.

"That's—kind of him, I suppose," I said. "What is it?"

Altair was scowling again. "I don't know," he said. "Al Mualim didn't tell me, and I didn't open the box."

"But what am I supposed to _do_ with it?"

"It's a necklace," he snapped. "Perhaps you should put it on."

If it had been anyone but Al Mualim and another of the Hashshashin, I would have suspected a trap—poison on the silver, or perhaps it was a stolen heirloom that would have me thrown in prison—but we were in the bureau, and it was the Master of the assassins who had given me this, and so I shrugged and dropped the chain about my neck.

Nothing happened for a moment.

And then: warmth, spreading through my skin and bones like a golden haze, and Altair drew in a sharp breath and stared at me.

"It's a shard," he said, quiet. "A shard of the artifact recovered at Jerusalem. Al Mualim said it had powers of illusion—"

Illusion. Another charm, then? "What has it done?"

"You look different," Altair said, shrugging. "Not very much, but—plain. Unremarkable."

"As opposed," I remarked dryly, "to the empty-headed flirt I usually look like?"

"Yes," said Altair, very bluntly.

The man had all the tact of a rampaging ox. I curled my fingers around the silver, wondering. For discretion, indeed—it seemed like a useful enough thing, mysterious or not, and perhaps Al Mualim would explain himself in his next letter.

The warmth faded as I tugged off the charm and dropped it back into the box. "Was there anything else?" I asked, picking up Sarai's report again.

His lips thinned. "No," Altair said, recognizing the dismissal and disliking it. "Nothing else."

But he bowed to me anyway before he went out of the room, and ah, there were so many things that I could have said about Altair—but he was loyal.

He was an assassin and he remembered it, always.

—

It took me a few days to find a mirror. This was an assassin's bureau, remember, filled with rugged, dangerous warriors who had no time for such frivolities as appearance—but then again, most of them did manage to shave without cutting themselves to ribbons, and after a day or so I came across a small square of silvered glass that the men presumably used.

Altair had been right. I did look different with the necklace on; _for discretion_, Al Mualim had written, and it was as though some artist had taken my image and smoothed it out until it was but a shadow of what it had been before. I was not entirely unrecognizable—but yes, as Altair said, I looked a little different. Not different enough for me to stroll past the city guards and out of Damascus, of course, but perhaps if they were otherwise occupied and the streets were dark—

It bore consideration, at least.

—

We rode out for Jerusalem with a trader's caravan a week after my husband died.

Well—Altair rode, anyway, posing as one of the guards. I hid with the grain sacks.

It was far less glamorous than I could ever have imagined. But we were out of the city soon enough, and after an hour on the road we were bidding farewell to the caravan master as Altair and I set out on our own. "We'll go east and south through the hills," he informed me, urging his horse in that direction. "Then around the bottom of Lake Hattin, and south again straight toward Jerusalem. We should reach the city within the week if no mishaps occur."

And: "You would do well to stay with me, and not go charging off alone."

Ah. I had been wondering when he would bring that up. "Don't try ordering me about, then," I said. "I don't like it any more than you would."

"_I _know what I'm doing," Altair snapped.

It was such a lovely day—summer now, green grass poking out from the roadside along with the occasional flower, and birds wheeling overhead in the endless blue sky—and already Altair was glaring at me narrow-eyed. "And I don't?" I demanded.

"Rafik Ibrahim has told me that you are a silver-tongued siren," Altair said coolly. "I have yet to see any sign of it."

"And you would like to, I suppose?"

"No."

Ah, well, now that was a curiosity. I nudged my horse a little closer and regarded him thoughtfully; now he was glaring straight ahead at the dusty road, and not at me at all. "Well, then," I said. "Why did you bring it up?"

His hands tightened on the reins, and he did not answer. After a moment, I added: "Al Mualim has a use for us all, you know—even an empty-headed flirt such as myself."

"_Flirt_ is far too kind a word for what you do," Altair said shortly, and spurred his horse on a little faster.

* * *

A/N: This wasn't really a chapter that needed notes, was it? Historical ones, anyway. I'm assuming you guys all know the thing with the Piece of Eden and it's powers of illusion, right?

Also: Ezio is hot. Also: check out doubleleaf over at deviantart, she draws some excellent excellent stuff, like Altair shirtless. I've been meaning to mention her for a while.


	18. Kingdom: Desert Tower

A/N: Sorry I've been MIA! Back now, hopefully.

* * *

Once upon a time there was a prophet, and he cured the blind and raised the dead and walked upon water in a storm.

And he did not die, as mortals do, but he was raised to raised to heaven when his time had passed—and he left behind this world of men, but ah, these were the signs of his passage! A temple, a mountain, a flock of birds—

—and here: water, rippling away into the distance like a dream.

—

Lake Hattin, when we reached it, was calm against the sky and full of the glitter of the falling sun. It was beautiful, and I had never seen it before, and I had thought that Altair might spare me a few moments to watch the sunset over the water—but of course he had no patience for such things. He cast the view an unimpressed glance and turned his horse aside.

"Let's go," he snapped at me. "It would be best if we reached the tower before nightfall."

"Tower?" I said, reluctantly dragging my gaze back to the road. "What tower?"

"There's an abandoned outpost nearby. We'll stay there for the night."

"Is it far?"

"No."

I tilted my head back. If I squinted, I could see the tower off in the distance—a smudge of stone amongst the hills, gray against the darkening sky. We could make it there well before dark. I sighed.

"Tell me," I said to Altair, "isn't there anything you do for fun?"

He gave me a look. "I have little time for frivolous entertainments," he said, with the clear insinuation that _I_ had far too much time for such things. But I had been riding all day at such a slow pace, to save the horses, and now I was bored and curious and not yet ready to be deterred from this line of questioning.

"You must enjoy _something_," I said. "Music, perhaps. Or poetry?"

"No."

Of course. A hardened warrior such as Altair would think such pursuits frivolous. I smothered a snort. "Wine? Horse races? Dancing-girls?"

"_No_."

"What do you do in your spare time, then?"

"I spend my spare time in the practice ring," Altair snapped. "It is no small thing, to learn the sword."

I bent my head to conceal my smile. "I see."

He looked skeptical.

"Oh, but I do," I assured him. "I understand full well how young men like you enjoy playing with your swords."

Altair made a strangled sound, as though he wanted to kill me.

And oh, I missed the Garden all of a sudden—the Blossoms would have giggled, and Rasha would have laughed outright, and Sarai would have blushed when we explained it to her—

But I was alone now, here on the dusty road with the setting sun, and the most humorless assassin in Masyaf was keeping me company.

My smile faded.

How ironic that it was Altair, of all people, who made me wish for home. "Never mind," I said, suddenly tired of the teasing, and the last of the sunlight was gleaming too-bright in my eyes. "It's none of my business what you do, anyway."

We rode on.

—

That night we camped in the shadow of the crumbling lakeside tower, and Altair made a small fire from dried twigs we gathered from the bushes on the hillsides. We ate. We fed our horses. We sat across from each other and did not speak, and it seemed quite likely that we would have spent the rest of the journey to Jerusalem in silence—until Altair looked up from cleaning his daggers and said, quietly: "Don't move."

I glanced at him. "What's wrong?"

"There are men approaching. Armed. I doubt they mean well."

"Where?" I couldn't hear them.

"One coming up behind you. Others circling around." Firelight flickered in his eyes as he paused, listening. "Dodge when I—_now_, Isra!"

I threw myself to the side. A figure came barreling past, stumbling onto the fire and scattering cinders everywhere; Altair was already on his feet, his sword out, and there was the sound of steel through flesh and a man's anguished scream.

Blood splattered across the stones.

Then, suddenly, the camp was full of movement—smoke and flailing limbs and the clash of swords, too much for me to follow—and I scrambled back, my dagger in my hand, and tried to stay out of the fray. One of the men was shouting.

"The girl!" he cried out, blades flashing in the darkness. "He's protecting her—grab the girl!"

Distressingly observant of him. I turned and ran. Someone came crashing after me; oh, these men could not be bandits, Altair was well-armed and too much trouble for mere bandits to rob—

—they could not be soldiers, either, who could have stopped us on the road and demanded a toll without bothering to set up an ambush—

I stumbled on a rock. There was a hand on my arm and then the man who had seized me was roughly pulling me upright; "I've got her!" he shouted back at the camp, his other hand twisting in my hair. "She's here, she—"

I swung into him, as Idris had taught me all these months and years ago, and slammed my elbow into his chin. He had not been expecting that. He hadn't been expecting my dagger, either—I struck with it, catching the edge on cloth and leather and skin, and the man released me with a startled curse.

"Stay still," he snarled at me.

As though I would listen to _him_. I slipped back, out of his reach, and he lunged for me.

Two inches of steel came bursting forth from his throat.

I stared. The man made a faint gurgling sound and fell over. Then there was the hiss of metal as Altair retracted his hidden blade, and he was spinning around to meet another assailant with his sword—

But there was no need.

The last man was scrambling back, and even in the dim starlight I could see his eyes wide with fear.

"_Assassin_," he whispered, and dropped his blade, and ran.

—

Altair's hands were on my shoulders. "I've killed the other," he said briefly. "We can't stay here. Are you hurt?"

"No." There was something on my hands—ah, I had drawn blood. I let out a breath, wiped my dagger clean on a nearby shrub, and tucked it away. Altair was already headed back towards our ruined campsite. I scrambled to catch up.

"I thought you said this outpost was abandoned," I said, a trifle accusingly.

"It should have been." He sounded grim.

"Then who—"

"I don't know."

We packed in silence. There was a dead man sprawled out beside the dying fire; blood was spilling everywhere, and the horses were edgy, and my shoulder was stinging from where the man had grabbed me.

They should not have been here. This was a deserted road—too poor for villages, too rocky for travelers—and suddenly there were there men here, armed and armored, who thought they could take on Altair.

"He recognized you," I said abruptly, looking up from my pack. "He called you Assassin, and ran—"

Altair cast me a glance from over my mare's back. "We are known beyond Masyaf," he said. "Saladin's soldiers hunt us, on occasion. The Crusaders hunt us on sight."

"They weren't soldiers." They couldn't have been.

"Search them, then," Altair said.

Yes, because they weren't dead bodies covered in blood—not that Altair would have any sympathy for me, if I mentioned this. Sighing, I rose to my feet and went to kneel beside the corpse by the fire. Ah, there was blood _everywhere_, seeping from the dead man's mouth and from the gash in his chest; battle was such a chaotic, inelegant thing, and my skirt would be ruined by the time I was through.

I searched him anyway.

A handful of coins, copper and silver. A knife in his boot and another in his sleeve. Leather armor; a length of rope around his waist; two glass vials of—_something_—in his pockets. The last held my attention.

I held them up to the firelight, frowning. It was too dark to make out the color, but they smelled like ashes and bitter herbs—not something a soldier would carry, or a bandit, either. "Altair."

"You've found something?"

"I think so."

"Bring it with you," he said. "We shouldn't linger here."

—

Two men dead, and one escaped; if there had been more of them nearby, he might have led them back to us, and I knew full well that I was too important to the Hashshashin to risk being captured. So I did not complain when Altair pushed us on.

But it was a long, long ride alongside the deserted lakeshore road, made longer in the darkness, and the wind off the waterside was startlingly cold. There was no sound of pursuit but we hurried anyway; we rode for half the night, dozed for a few hours until dawn, washed and ate and set off again—by midmorning we had reached the southernmost tip of the lake, and the road was veering off towards Jerusalem.

It was a pity we were not prophets, Altair and I; else we might have simply walked across the surface of the lake and saved ourselves some time.

I was too tired, by then, to bother suppressing my giggle. Altair looked at me as though he were doubting my sanity. "I was thinking of miracles," I explained, which likely did not explain very much; and: "Thank you. For protecting me."

Now he looked as though he _really_ doubted my sanity. "It was my duty."

"Well, then," I said, "you have done your duty well."

A long silence, broken only by the sound of our horses' hoofbeats.

"Thank you," Altair said at last.

Ah, how appropriate, then, that I had just been thinking of miracles; once upon a time there was a prophet, and he cured the blind and raised the dead and walked upon water in a storm—and perhaps his spirit lingered here yet, because today Altair had thanked me.

* * *

A/N: So escort missions are a bitch, huh?

Notes: The prophet is Jesus. They're riding past Lake Galilee, which was also known as Lake Hattin, as in "the battle of Hattin" where Saladin kicked Crusader ass. I'm pretty sure there isn't a ruined tower on the lake where they stop, but these towers show up everywhere in the kingdom when Altair rides through it so I thought I'd throw it in.


	19. Jerusalem: Ghosts

A/N: Formatting's been wonky lately. Sorry about that; I don't know what's up with the site.

* * *

This is Jerusalem: a city of bells and towers and holy men; ancient temples and high lonely minarets; shrines for dead saints, and white-robed scholars, and relics of the prophets that came before.

In her letters, Sarai had written to me of Jerusalem as a glorious, bustling city at the heart of the world. Damascus might be the meeting-place for a hundred caravans, but it was Jerusalem that was the meeting-place for a thousand pilgrims, and she had been breathless with the grandeur of this city that was at the foot of heaven. She had written to me of the gleaming golden Dome, and the droning prayers from the mosques at midday, and the gardens overflowing with flowers where the scholars talked; she had written to me of all the sermons overheard from the churches and the debates of the imams; she had written to me of how every morning in Jerusalem felt like the dawn of the world.

Oh, Sarai was a pilgrim, as enthralled as any that she described—

This is Jerusalem: a city of beggars and harlots and thieves, like any other.

Sarai would have called me a cynic, but Sarai was not here.

—

The Jerusalem bureau was a dusty cartographer's shop in the middle of the city, and it was closed when Altair and I arrived.

It looked, in fact, as though it were never open; the windows were shuttered, the flowerpots by the door were overgrown with weeds, and the painted wooden sign was so faded as to be incomprehensible. Altair didn't bother knocking at the door. We circled around to the back of the building instead, and climbed over the courtyard wall.

I landed in a pile of tattered, threadbare tapestries. More overgrown flowerpots here, and a fountain covered in cobwebs and dead leaves—

"This way," Altair said, nudging aside a cracked urn. "You should speak to the rafik."

And he held the door open for me as we went inside.

—

It was dim within, and dusty—and empty, too, with no one on guard, though the door to the shopfront opened almost immediately and a black-robed assassin came ducking through.

He stopped when he saw us.

"Oh," he said, glowering at Altair. "It's _you_."

"Malik," Altair said coolly.

"That's _rafik_ to you," Malik snapped. "I'm surprised Al Mualim has let you out of the castle. Shouldn't you be mucking out the stables with the other novices?"

"I came here as escort."

Malik glanced at me. "So I see," he said. "I'm astonished that she still breathes." He turned, his robes swishing, and I caught a glimpse of his empty right sleeve. "Isra," Malik said to me, "welcome to Jerusalem. I would apologize for the state of the bureau, but as you are no doubt aware, we are rather short of men at the moment."

The accusation hung in the air like a shroud.

Beside me, Altair was bristling. "Thank you," I said sharply, and the two men turned away from glaring at each other and glared at me instead. "Malik. Take my bags to my room, please—I assume you _have_ readied a room for me? Altair—I would like a bath."

"What?" Altair said.

"There's a fountain in the courtyard. Fetch me some water."

Malik snorted. "Yes, you'd best do as she says, lest she ask Al Mualim to demote you even further—"

"Malik. My bags."

He shut his mouth, bowed to me curtly, took my bags one-handed and swept out of the room.

Altair looked at me for a moment as though he wished to speak.

But then he, too, merely bowed, and left in silence for the courtyard. The door swung shut after him as he went.

—

Altair. And Malik.

And Kaddar.

Malik had been his brother. I remembered Rasha complaining of it, all those years ago on the mountainsides of Masyaf—

Altair had lost his honor at Jerusalem; Malik had lost his arm. Kaddar had lost his life.

Rasha had lost her lover, and I had lost Rasha.

Altair's fault, all of it, but we could not lose him too.

—

Malik was waiting for me in my room, looking bitter, but he briefed me well enough and handed me a stack of reports to read. I was halfway through Sarai's assessment of Talal when Altair reappeared.

He had managed to find bronze basin somewhere and had filled it most of the way with water. "The fountain's clogged," he said shortly, setting the basin down before me. "It will take some time to fix—this was the most water I could get."

"Thank you." The water was cold—but it would, at least, get the dust out of my hair. Ah, in Tamir's house I'd had soap and scented oils and a maid to help me wash—

"Is there anything else?" Altair was asking.

I stirred the water absently, one-handed. "Is Malik likely to murder you in your sleep?"

A pause.

"He might attempt it," Altair said reluctantly.

"Don't hurt him. We can't afford to lose more men."

As reprimands went, it was as gentle a one as I could make it—but Altair disliked it, as he disliked me, as he disliked everything—and in this one case, at least, I could understand him.

He rose. He bowed. "I'll leave you to your washing," Altair said, and departed.

—

A courier came through the next day, and I sent him off to Masyaf through Acre with letters for Sarai and Al Mualim and Rasha.

And I would have liked to send Altair back to Masyaf as well, but I could not.

Jerusalem was the largest of our operations outside of the fortress, but it was also the most decentralized. The bureau was more a waystation for passing couriers than anything else; the only assassin who resided there with any permanence was the Jerusalem rafik, and when I arrived, Malik was the only man there at all—not even any novices were there to go on patrol or stand guard at the door.

The had all been reassigned, Malik informed me bitterly. Reassigned, or dead.

And now I was in Jerusalem and Malik could not leave the bureau unattended to escort me about the city and there was no one else who could be spared to do it—so Altair it was, and he did not even scowl at me when I informed him of the arrangements, and he did not ride back to the fortress with the courier when he left. Doubtless he had been expecting this. And it worked well enough; Altair came with me while I acquainted myself with Jerusalem these first few days, and Malik managed the bureau affairs as he always had.

But oh—what awkward silences there were in the old cartography shop, afterwards.

Men had a way of speaking to each other that seemed to consist primarily of not speaking to each other, and I had never before realized how uncomfortable it would be for me to intrude upon a conversation that was not occurring. At mealtimes Altair and Malik sat across from each other and were silent; a furious silence, punctuated by glares and scowling all around, and I sat between the two of them and did not bother to try my hand at conversation. Altair had little enough to say to me at the best of times, anyway, and I did not know Malik at all—so I ate quickly, and escaped to my room as soon as I could.

Alas, my room was silent too, and the entire bureau was silent, and every evening the bells of Jerusalem went tolling across the city like a dirge.

This is Jerusalem: a city of blood and secrets, Templars and Assassins, failure and bitterness and dead men's ghosts.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for your reviews, and your patience.


	20. Jerusalem: Acquaintance

A/N: I AM TRYING TO UPDATE REGULARLY I SWEAR

* * *

The Jerusalem bureau had room enough for a dozen men, but at the moment it housed only three, and it was such an empty, echoing thing that for the first few days I startled whenever I heard footsteps on the stairs. And it was a dusty place, too—Malik had not bothered to do very much cleaning when he had been the only one here.

"Why?" he said to me, bitter, when I asked him about the over-cluttered courtyard. "What would I do there? Al Mualim has judged me unfit to wield a sword."

So it was Altair who cleaned up the courtyard and fixed the fountain, and Altair who practiced his blades there, and sometimes Malik would come out and watch him and sometimes he would not.

He was so eloquent, with his silences.

Malik hated being crippled, and he hated being named rafik over an empty bureau, and most of all he hated Altair with a vehemence that I understood and a misery that I did not. Perhaps I should have tried. I didn't; it seemed rude to pry.

—

Most of the assassins in Jerusalem were spies in prominent households, or clustered in groups of two or three in hideouts across the city, and I spent much of the first week lurking on various benches and gardens waiting for informants to come and brief me. Altair, who came along as guard, made things both amusing and difficult. He had a tendency to scowl at anyone who even breathed in my direction—the novices who came to deliver reports wilted under his hawk-eyed stare, and the people passing by gave us a suspiciously wide berth.

"You could try to look a little friendlier," I remarked finally, after a girl selling flowers by the street-side gave us a frightened look and scurried away at Altair's glare. "Won't the guards get suspicious if you keep scaring people off?"

Altair turned his scowl on me. "She was watching us."

"Of course she was watching us." I tugged absently at my necklace. It was the silver one Al Mualim had given me; I had taken to wearing it while I was outside the bureau. "She was probably hoping we would buy some flowers."

"Or perhaps she's a Templar agent, sent out to spy."

I stared at him. "You're paranoid."

"I'm cautious," he corrected.

"Of course," I said dryly. "Well, then, to be extra cautious, don't you think you should check on her?"

"What?"

"Go talk to her," I said. "Buy some flowers. Make sure she's not a Templar spy."

I outranked him and Altair knew it, but I think what infuriated him the most was the fact that I was right—she _might_ have been a spy, so he _should_ go after her—he hated that I had thought to suggest it from something _he_ had mentioned.

His scowl deepening, Altair swept to his feet and stalked after the unfortunate girl.

I leaned back on the bench and watched. Altair managed to corner her by a grocer's stall, and this girl must have been braver than she looked because she stood her ground as he approached and cautiously held out her basket. Altair said something—a question, perhaps. The girl shook her head, looking puzzled, and held out her basket again.

Then Altair was dropping a coin into her hand and turning away with a fistful of flowers, and the girl was hurrying elsewhere, and he came back to the bench where I was sitting and dropped the blossoms into my lap.

"Blooddrops," I noted. "How thoughtful of you."

"They were the only ones she had," Altair snapped, doubtless offended by the suggestion that he had ever been thinking of me.

I broke off a flower and tucked it behind my ear. "So was she a Templar spy, then?"

"It's—unlikely."

I grinned to myself. Altair looked supremely irritated.

"We should go," he said shortly. "Before the guards do think to check on us."

But he scowled a little less at the next informant who came to meet us, and I twirled a flower between my fingertips and considered the fact that no one had ever dared to tease Altair.

—

By the end of the week I was reasonably well-acquainted with all of our affairs in Jerusalem, but I was still no closer to uncovering the Templar Grand Master that Al Mualim had asked me to find. It had seemed an easy enough plan; someone was protecting Talal and his operations, so I would frighten Talal into giving me his name—

This was the trouble: Talal was already frightened.

"He's a coward," I said grimly, poring over maps with Malik in the dusty shopfront. "The slightest hint of trouble from Damascus, and he locks himself into his house and doubles his guards."

"We've managed to get two men into his household," Malik said. "Have you heard from them?"

"Useless. Talal doesn't trust them."

"What did you have planned?"

I shrugged. "I wanted to frighten him," I said. "Harry his caravans. Kill his associates. Then—follow him when he goes to his patron for aid, and then we would have the both of them—but Talal isn't going anywhere. He's no use to us if he merely hides in his burrow and goes to no one."

Jubair might have given me this Grand Master's name, had I stayed in Damascus to pressure him, but a name was not enough. I needed access to this man. I needed to know where he lived, what he did in his spare time, where he went and how many guards he kept and what sort of food he liked—

I needed to know how we might kill him, if Al Mualim deemed it necessary.

"Give him some time," Malik said. "Tamir's execution has frightened this slaver underground, but in another week or two he'll realize how foolish it is to hide."

I glanced at Malik. "How do you know?" I asked.

"It was a guess."

Sunlight was coming in through the cracks from the window. I lifted up my palm, watched as the movement stirred up the dancing dust-motes above my hand.

"I can't afford to guess," I said.

—

This was the real trouble: I did not know Talal, and I did not know how I could learn.

Alas, there was nothing I could do but wait, as Malik had suggested, and I hated waiting; it was the worst sort of enforced idleness. I was impatient. I paced, and I fretted, and I fumed at Talal for being such a coward.

I was too restless to write letters. I cleaned the bureau instead—every inch of it, except for the shopfront—and that should have occupied me for several days, but instead only took an afternoon, because no one had bothered to outfit the bureau with furniture. The six bedrooms on the upper floor had sleeping pallets and a wardrobe in each; the central room on the lower floor had four chairs and a table. I swept all the cobwebs out and wished that there were some rugs for me to beat.

"Of course there aren't any rugs," Malik said incredulously, when I asked him about it. "Don't touch those maps, they're very old—"

"They're dusty," I protested.

"Go bother Altair," he said, and chased me out of the shopfront.

So I went to bother Altair, who wasn't happy about it either.

"I am not teaching you how to use a sword," he informed me, scowling.

"Daggers, then," I said. "Or grappling. We could spar."

"I might hurt you."

"I'm certain you would like to," I said dryly, "but please, try to restrain yourself."

Altair gave me a long look. "Don't you have anything else to do?" he asked, and I was forced to admit that no, I didn't.

He sighed.

We did spar, which distracted me well enough by wearing me out completely, and Altair tried to be gentle but he was terrible at it. On the first day he tore my shirt; the second day, he backhanded me into the fountain; by the end of the week, half my clothes were ruined, I had a lovely bruise on my jaw, and somehow Altair had managed to slash me on the shoulder even though I was _sure_ that I had brought my arm up fast enough to block—

—but clearly I hadn't, because there was sudden shock of pain and then blood everywhere.

Altair was saying something, but I couldn't hear him.

"You're much better than Idris," I told him hazily, and clutched at my dagger, and sat down very abruptly at dizziness hit me.

When I opened my eyes again, I discovered that Altair had carried me into the bureau and was arguing with Malik.

"—she's fainted," Malik was saying. "You've made her faint. Does Al Mualim know what you're doing to his favorite apprentice?"

"She insisted," Altair snapped. "Get me some bandages."

"Don't be so arrogant to think you can wound _her_ without consequence," Malik snapped back. "You may have all the skills of a Master Assassin but do not forget that there was a _reason_ for your demotion—"

"I didn't faint," I said. My shoulder was throbbing.

Both of them swung around to look at me. "No, certainly not," said Malik. "You merely closed your eyes and lost consciousness, was that it?"

Well. "I'm fine," I said instead. "It was only a cut."

Malik threw his arms—arm—into the air. "Then I suppose there was no need of me after all," he snapped, and turned, and slammed out of the room.

I stared after him.

Rage and bitterness and resentment in the air, like ashes, and blood was dripping down my shirt, and I was wondering if I should have send Altair back to Masyaf after all—

Malik was such a different man, when Altair was not around.

"Lift up your arm," Altair said, almost gentle. I wasn't listening.

"You. And Malik. What—"

"Lift up your arm," Altair said again, and refused to answer anything else.

—

So that would have been the end of our sparring sessions if Altair or Malik had been the ones to decide such things—but despite what Malik thought, Al Mualim would not have approved of my giving up so easily, and in any case what else was there for me to do while I waited for Talal?

After some argument—and quite a bit of scowling—Altair and I were back in the courtyard the next day, going over the basic blocking exercises and counterattacks.

It had only been a shallow cut.

If I had been some novice in Masyaf, no one would have even thought to stop my training, and I rebelliously shook away the thought that I was not _some novice_ and never could be.

* * *

A/N: Isra likes to think that she's tough but really she faints at the sight of blood.

And thanks, as always, to everyone who reviewed. (Do you know what I realized? No one ever leaves bad reviews. If someone doesn't like a story then they just stop reading a few paragraphs in and they don't say anything at all, which means that terrible writers will just keep on churning out terrible writing, and they'll never realize it because no one will bother to tell them otherwise. This was a very discouraging thought. Although I suppose it would be unfair to make someone sit through a terrible story just so they can critique it later.)


	21. Jerusalem: The Hunt

A/N: Plot. Plotty plot plot.

* * *

My clothes were still ruined. This, despite what Malik or Altair might have believed, was a problem.

I had left most of my wardrobe behind in Damascus—in Tamir's house, to be precise—and that was hardly the sort of thing I could recover; the few things I had brought with me were looking rather battered after a week of being subjected to Altair's training. Perhaps it was petty of me to care but I could not go and meet a Templar whilst looking like a street urchin—and if I needed to seduce this Templar, or more, then it was imperative that I look the part.

A caravan should have arrived from the Damascus rafik with new clothes for me. It had not; I was beginning to worry.

But, of course, not everyone else shared my concerns.

—

"Clothes?" Malik asked blankly, when I brought the subject up. "Why? Don't you already have clothes?"

"They aren't suitable," I said. The shirt I was currently wearing wasn't even mine; I had found some novice's old castoffs lying forgotten in a chest.

This was lost on Malik, who continued to look puzzled. "Why not?"

I sighed. "I need something—prettier. Feminine. Bright colors and silks and long skirts. Perfume. Jewelry. I was expecting a shipment from Damascus—"

"I shall look into it," Malik promised, and valiantly refrained from rolling his eyes as I knew he would have liked to do. "If you need anything in the meantime, perhaps you should go see Yusuf."

"Yusuf?"

"Yusuf ibn Salim al-Tamun. He acts as Sarai's brother." Malik shrugged. "I'm certain he would let you borrow her things, if you have need of them; he has a house near the eastern gate."

The merchant. I remembered Sarai describing him in her letters.

"I'll go see him, then," I said, and went out to find Altair.

—

Altair wasn't much more sympathetic than Malik had been.

"Clothes," he said flatly, stalking after me through the dusty streets like a particularly aggrieved shadow. "And this is of paramount importance to our cause."

"Oh, yes," I said reassuringly, which of course did not reassure him at all. "And _you_ have the honor of carrying them back to the bureau!"

I could feel him glaring at my neck. Oh, I should not bait him so—but it was so _easy_.

"And what," Altair said, "is wrong with what you're wearing now?"

I had braided my hair and hidden it beneath a scarf; with Al Mualim's pendant and the novice's old clothes, I looked perhaps thirteen years old and male.

It did make a good disguise—no one stared at me now, when I went down the street—but it was the _only_ disguise I had on hand, and perhaps I desired a little more flexibility in my choice of costume.

Not that Altair would understand the explanation; not that I particularly wanted to explain.

"This isn't nearly frivolous enough for my taste," I said instead, flippant. "Couldn't you tell?"

Doubtless Altair had trouble believing that anything could be _too _frivolous for me, if his scowl was any indication, but he fell silent after that and did not speak again until we were almost to this merchant's house; quiet streets and crowded markets and quiet streets again, and I had already forgotten what we had been talking about, and that was when Altair said: "It's mine."

"What?"

"Your shirt," he said, his mouth tightening. "It was mine during my apprenticeship here. I outgrew and left it behind when I returned to Masyaf."

Oh.

I stared down at my sleeve, where someone—presumably Altair—had mended a tear. He was a better seamstress than I had ever been; I'd never had the patience to sit and sew things up properly.

And, because I could not think of anything else: "Do you want it back?"

Altair cast me a glance, swift and unreadable. "No," he said.

I went after him, utterly lost. "But—"

"Keep it," Altair told me.

The silence between us was all edges now, and I did not know what to say, and I did not understand Altair at all.

I was grateful that our arrival on Yusuf's doorstep saved me from having to respond.

—

He was not an important man, this Yusuf—he was not an assassin, he was not even a spy—only some trader who had grown rich on our gold, and mild enough in temperament to be trusted not to molest a pretty girl like Sarai.

She hadn't particularly liked him, I remembered. She hadn't particularly disliked him either—

_entirely inoffensive_ was the phrase that Sarai had used to describe the man.

Altair raised his hand to knock. I unfastened the silver amulet from my neck; warmth rushed across my skin as the charm faded away, and then a servant was standing there blinking at us, bewildered, as he opened the door.

I didn't blame him. We must have looked a strange pair, Altair and I.

"If you're lost—" the servant began.

"We have business with your master," Altair said, flashing him the red silk of the Assassins. "Let us in."

The man snapped his mouth shut and let us in.

We waited for a moment in the front room before Yusuf himself came hurrying out to meet us. He was a short man, balding and nondescript, and he came towards me without needing to be introduced; "You must be Isra," Yusuf said, and I finally understood what Sarai had meant by _inoffensive_—restrained in speech and demeanor, bowing over my hand just long enough to be polite and no more—too bland for me to like or dislike him, either way, though Altair still scowled as though Yusuf had attempted the worst of improprieties. "Sarai spoke much of you, when she was here," he said, straightening up. "I hope the guards did not give you too much trouble?"

I had not been so inured to the ways of the Hashshashin that this seemed a suitable greeting, especially from a civilian.

"What?" I said, eloquently.

"No, of course not," Yusuf amended hastily. "I'm certain you were able to avoid them—"

"The guards? Why would I need to avoid them?"

Yusuf blinked at me. "Oh," he said. "Well. It's only that half the city garrison is searching for you, though of course their description doesn't do you justice."

"Their description," I said.

"Yes—a young woman, extraordinarily beautiful, answers to the name of Isra—"

Altair swore.

It was the first time I had ever heard him curse, and I was still staring at him in amazement when he strode up to Yusuf, seized him by the collar, and said: "Explain. Now."

—

Yusuf explained.

Well, he attempted to, though nothing very coherent escaped until I persuaded Altair to release him. Most of the explanation was delivered to me in Sarai's room as I packed the things I needed, and Yusuf was nervous even after I had banished Altair to the hallway—possibly because Altair was looming at the door like a particularly irate bird of prey.

Half the city garrison was looking for me. "Why?" I asked, and Yusuf shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. And: "The guards were ordered to take you to Talal alive, should you be found. He did not say why."

Talal. He was too much of a coward to come out and hunt me himself, so he had paid the city to do it—though how he had known I was here, that was a mystery. Jubair might have told him my name but certainly he would not have guessed that the Assassins would take me to Jerusalem; Masyaf was a far more likely destination if I had really been kidnapped.

I considered the contents of Sarai's jewelry case. Behind me, Altair was scowling—I could feel the force of his disapproval even while my back was turned.

"Who gave the order?" I asked.

Yusuf shook his head again. "I don't know."

Who would have the authority to do such a thing? A guard-captain would not—so the city sergeant perhaps, and he was an easy enough man to bribe if the rumors were true—or a corrupt judge with friends in high places, or some minister or other—

Or. The Templar Grand Master.

Sarai's collection of earrings was enviable. Regretfully, I passed them over for something a little more practical—hairpins sharp as daggers, and a bracelet with a hollow chamber for poison—with Yusuf watching me warily all the while. "There's a bounty," he offered.

Of course there was. "How much?"

"A hundred pieces of gold."

My dowry to Tamir had been six times that.

"We shouldn't linger," Altair said from the doorway. "It'll be safer if we move while the streets are still crowded."

—

The question of how Talal had know that I was in Jerusalem would not be answered for two more days. That was how long it took Sarai's reply to arrive from Acre:

_With regard to the vial you sent me two weeks ago_, she wrote, _I can confirm that it is a sedative. Moreover, it is the very sedative the Garnier de Naplouse uses on his patients; I have seen its like shipped to him from Damascus. The guards on the slave caravans carry these to ensure that their cargo remains docile during transport…_

So that explained a great deal many things.

"How," demanded Malik, "does this explain _anything_?"

I glanced at Altair, who had joined us at my request and over Malik's protests. "The men who attacked us by the lakeside tower," I said. "They were slavers—Talal's caravan guards—and you shouted my name to them when you told me to duck. One of them ran. You killed two, and the third recognized you and ran, do you remember?"

"I remember," Altair said.

"Oh, excellent," Malik said, acerbic. "Another fine calamity you've brought down on us, Altair. I have you to blame for this as well?"

"What would you have had me do?" Altair demanded. "Should I have left her there alone while I hunted the last guard?"

"_You_ are the Master Assassin, not I," Malik snapped. "How am I to know what methods you could have used?"

Bitterness had crept into his voice, like dust, like ashes, and he was not the Jerusalem rafik and Altair was not Masyaf's best assassin; they were only two boys, staring each other down from across the room as they prepared to brawl. Perhaps Malik had been right and I should have left Altair out of this.

Or perhaps bitterness was clouding his judgment. Or perhaps Altair was an arrogant fool who needed to be reminded of it. Or perhaps all of these things were true, or none—but I needed the both of them, here.

I sighed. "_Malik_," I said.

He broke off and looked at me.

"It's done," I said. "There's no use arguing about it now. What of Talal?"

Malik pressed his lips together, unhappy. Not that I had ever seen him anything but unhappy. "I would order his death—but you still have need of him, is this not so?"

"Yes."

"Then," Malik said, "I cannot order his death."

"You should return to Masyaf," Altair said. "You've been compromised."

"My identity and affiliations are safe. My_ name_ has been compromised." That was all Talal really knew of me, wasn't it? Only Tamir had suspected me of being something more than I pretended to be, and he was dead, and he would not have told anyone these thoughts anyway.

And Jubair had only known me as Tamir's wife. If he had mentioned me at all, it would only have been that—and now I was Tamir's widow, who had been taken by assassins.

"You have a plan?" Malik asked, watching me.

"I've been kidnapped from my husband's home," I said. "The assassins took me to make a point to the Templars. But now—perhaps they have not bothered to kill me. Perhaps they have found a better use for an empty-headed flirt."

Altair's words, and he recognized them. "_No_," he said sharply, leaping to his feet.

And Malik, a moment later: "You _know_ we would not do this—"

"But the Templars do not."

Both men were on their feet now, staring at me as though I had grown another head—or possibly two extra heads and a third arm. I pressed my lips together.

"What," I said, "is so unbelievable in the thought that you might have sold me to a brothel?"

"Nothing," Malik said, and sat back down with a furious thump, scowling ferociously. "Perhaps you would allow me to rephrase my objections? You wish for me to arrange for you to work in a brothel—"

"Don't tell me that it can't be done," I snapped. "I've seen our accounts, I know that we have affiliations with at _least_ two procurers and half a dozen whorehouses—"

"—_a brothel_," Malik said again, louder this time, "where you'll wait for this slaver to approach you, and then you shall simply—what? Seduce his secrets from him?"

"Yes."

Malik gave me a flat, unbelieving stare. I shrugged.

"It's either this," I said, "or you can turn me over to Talal for a hundred pieces of gold." I would be the bait, either way—

A sudden sound made me jump. Altair had slammed his hands down onto the table.

But: "Excuse me," was all he said, cold and glowering, before he turned away and stalked out of the room.

* * *

A/N: So I got a writeup on TV Tropes! I'm not sure who you are, but since you liked my story enough to say such nice things about it then I'll assume that you're reading this. *waves* Hi! And thanks.

Notes: Arabic names have a long and storied tradition which I'm not going to go into because I am far, far too busy drooling over the new Brotherhood trailers from E3 (yay Ezio! Anyone else love his badass smirk?) Here's the short-ish version. You have your standard given names, like Altair or Malik or Isra. Then you have the family name, like al-Tamun in Yusuf's case, which means "that guy Yusuf of the family Tamun," or more literally, "Yusuf from the place Tamun which is where his family comes from." In between you can have a bunch of other things. One of these is the patronymic; "ibn" means son of, and "bint" means daughter of, so Yusuf ibn Salim means "Yusuf, son of Salim" and Altair ibn La-Ahad means "Altair, son of none." (Isra bint X would mean "Isra, daughter of X," but in this universe she's just Isra since, you know, she doesn't technically have a family.) Another is some sort of description, usually a flattering one, like "the brave" or "the righteous" or something; Jubair al-Hakim, for example, means "Jubair, the Wise"—although I actually don't know with Jubair since I'm not too sure how Assassin's Creed did all the names, so al-Hakim might just be a family name. (I took it as a descriptive because he's a scholar and supposed to be wise.)

So a name would go something like this: [Given Name], son of [Name], the [Descriptive Adjective], of [Family Name].

Okay, that seemed a lot shorter in my head.

If anyone is wondering about the route Altair and Isra took from Damascus, looking at an actual map of the area might be helpful; the one provided in-game isn't very accurate. Basically, Masyaf is the northern-most city, then Damascus. Acre is south and west of Damascus on the coast, and to get to Acre you would turn west at the _top_ of Lake Hattin (or Lake Tiberius, as it's known now), and to get to Jerusalem you can follow the east coast of the lake all the way down because Jerusalem is the southern-most city. I guess my point is, if they ran into slavers along the lakeside, the slavers would have known that Isra and Altair were going to Jerusalem because they were headed south and were already past Acre. And, of course, everyone knows there are only four cities in the Holy Land, so where else would they have gone? (In-universe explanation: all the other towns and places on the way were too unimportant for Templars/Assassins to bother with.)

(Also? Guy de Lusignon totally got his ass kicked in Hattin.)


	22. Jerusalem: The Trap

A/N: Sorry about the delay; this chapter seriously kicked my ass. Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

* * *

There were worse things than going to a brothel: I could be dead, for one; or I could be back in Masyaf, reporting to Al Mualim that I had failed my duty; or I could have been captured by Templars who were even now torturing me for information. Yet none of these arguments seemed to be of any comfort to Malik, who only scowled darkly at everything I said.

"This is not the only way to reach Talal, if that is your intention," he fumed at me. "We have spies, informants—"

"This is the fastest," I said, and it was true.

"There are other concerns," Malik said sharply. "You will be in this place alone; if you are hurt, or if he tries to take you—"

"I will not be alone," I said. "And he will not try to take me."

Malik pressed his lips together, displeased.

But I won him over, in the end; my plan was sound, and it was fast, and in any case I outranked him and every other assassin in the city.

—

I did not see Altair again until evening-time, when I went up to my bedroom to find him waiting for me there; he had been leaning out the window, scowling, but turned to face me when I came in, and his mouth opened to speak.

"We're moving in two days," I informed him.

This distracted him from whatever else it was that he had been about to say. Altair frowned at me. "That's too soon."

"Well," I said dryly, "perhaps that is true, but you never bothered to say so before you stormed off, and I'm afraid the plan had to be made without the benefit of your wisdom."

I could see his jaw clench.

But he did not apologize; no, the Eagle of Masyaf would do nothing so humble as admit he was wrong, or even bothering to explain himself. "Where are you going?" Altair asked instead.

"The Crimson Rose." I had never heard of it, but Malik had assured me that it would suit. "Sundown, the day after tomorrow. An escort will be arranged—you'd best go tell Malik _now_ if you want to go, or else he'll pull two men from duty elsewhere."

"I'll go," Altair said tightly.

I had thought he would. "He'll tell you the rest of your role, then, too."

Altair didn't move. "And your role?" he asked me, his dark eyes on mine, the edge of his robes outlined against the fading light from the window. "What will you be doing, at this Rose?"

Whatever was necessary. I shrugged. "Wait for Talal," I said, too lightly. "Wear pretty things and brush out my hair. Sing and play the flute a little and drink wine."

He stared at me a little longer. And: "You've been in the Garden in Masyaf's fortress," he said.

I had been raised there. "Yes."

"Courtesans," Altair said, not bitterly, but so passionless that it might as well have been the same. "Most of them do not wear fine silks and lounge about in gardens all day. Do you think there will be flowers for you, when you go to this place? There won't."

"Altair—"

"You do not know _anything_," he said, low and furious. "You have never been in one of these places. You have stayed in gardens and castles and rich men's mansions—do you know what a whorehouse is like? It is not a kind place."

It was my turn to stare at him. I had never seen him in such an outburst; this was such a strange conversation, and I did not know why Altair was speaking to me at all. "Is this a warning?"

"This," he said, "is the truth." His voice was all edges.

Silence stretched out between us.

"Do you think I will fail?" I asked at last.

"Al Mualim has placed his faith in you," Altair said. "Al Mualim has placed men and resources in your hands. I do not wish to see you fail."

"That is not an answer."

He never gave me one.

Instead he straightened; bowed to me so low that it was an insult; and went from my room with his sash trailing behind, blood-red against the shadows.

—

I was a trap set for Talal, and everyone knew it.

This is the Rose: red and orange and gilt everywhere, candles burning in the alcoves, too-thick perfume and low music and the murmuring of voices in every corner—nothing like the Garden at all, and everything like it, and I could not decide whether I should feel homesick or merely bewildered as Altair seized my arm and hurried me through the common room. There were lovely women who might have been Blossoms but weren't, and men who might have been Assassins but weren't, and a young boy going around with a plate of figs; almost, I was seven again, guarded by Assassins bristling with steel and danger, and I was being brought before a woman who might have been Shadha but wasn't—

She called herself Thara. She was the madam, and this was her office, and the door shut behind us as we entered.

"You remember our bargain," Altair said shortly. He shoved me to my knees before her desk.

Behind us, the other assassin made a startled sound of protest that he quickly turned into a cough. His name was Jamal, a young man called away for the evening from guard duty in the regent's household; doubtless he had never seen any of the Wildflowers treated so.

"I remember," the madam said, over the sound of Jamal's brief coughing fit. She came around her desk, forced my chin up with her hand, stared into my face for a long moment with her brow furrowed. Her nails were sharp. I shut my eyes and did not fidget.

"Docile," I heard her say approvingly. "Pretty, too. You won't sell her? I could get you five offers within the week—"

"No." Altair's voice was harsh. "She is a gift."

_She is a trap_, he might very well have said, and the madam knew it, but I opened my eyes in time to see her shrug and release me. "Very well," she said. "I'll take her in, as agreed."

It was a dismissal. Alas, Altair had never taken well to being dismissed; he stood his ground, drew himself up taller, and glowered.

"You will keep to our terms," he said, cold. His sword came out of his scabbard—only a scant few inches, but the flash of steel was enough to make the madam take a step back. "She is a gift. She is not meant for your clients, and if any other man touches her—"

"They will not," the madam said tightly. What guards she had were burly thugs to frighten unarmed girls and wrestle down drunks; they would not stand against two Assassins and she knew it. "I'll keep her isolated from the men."

Altair let his sword fall back into his scabbard. "Good."

He caught Jamal's eye, and then the two of them were gone.

—

I was a trap set for Talal, and he knew it, and he came anyway.

How could he not? The Templars hunted us just as we hunted them, and ours was a conflict long written in blood; it would have been unthinkable for him not to come. Of course it was a trap. It could not have been anything else.

But ah, what better way to learn our plans than by walking directly into them?

—

It took him less than a day. I was grateful for his speed, for I did not know how much longer Altair's threat would be effective; the madam did not seem to be the sort of woman who would be frightened for very long. Another day, perhaps two, and she might be hawking me to her clients despite all our threats—

But I did not have to wait so long. Talal came to me the very next morning.

His entrance was impossible for me to miss, even though I had been locked in the smallest bedchamber furthest away from the entrance. The commotion began in mid-morning: loud shouting coming from the direction of the front hall, and the crash of furniture and startled shrieks as the other girls came awake; the sound of armored boots against the floor; then the door to my room was slamming open, men crowding everywhere and slashing their swords against the curtains, and someone was dragging me out of the bed—

Dark hair and braids and a tunic embroidered with gold—

"_You_," Talal snarled at me, his fingers digging deep into my shoulders, and dragged me upright. And, to his guards: "Search the other rooms. Make sure it is safe—no, not all of you, you fools—you two, stay outside, make sure no one comes in."

The men obeyed him with alacrity. The room was clear again within seconds, the door slamming shut behind them; outside, I could hear the madam protesting shrilly at this rough treatment of her establishment. Talal ignored her. He turned to me.

"Tell me where the Assassins are hiding," he demanded, and threw me back down onto the bed.

"I don't know," I said, scrambling away from him. "Who are you? They said someone would come for me—"

"No one is coming for you," Talal said.

"I have a cousin." My back was against the wall, my breaths coming hard and fast. "He lives in Jerusalem, he'll find me—"

Talal slapped me, hard, against my cheek.

"Don't lie," he said, contemptuous. "You are Isra ar-Rashida. You have no cousin in Jerusalem. Your father is dead. Your husband is dead. No one is coming for you, and I will leave you to rot here unless you tell me what I want to know."

"You hit me," I said instead, my hand on my face.

"And I will do it again." He turned to pace—not that there was much room. "I knew your husband before he was murdered; I did not think he would be so soft with his wife."

Tamir had never been gentle.

"If you knew my husband," I said, "then you would take me away from this place."

He turned on me. "You are in no position to bargain," Talal snapped. "Talk. Now. And if what you say pleases me, then I will take you away, and if not, then you can beg mercy from the next man who comes to see you, and the next, and the next."

Oh, how smoothly he said it—threat and promise, both at once—and I could almost admire him for his eloquence. "I don't know," I said again. "They—they took me away in the night, They brought me to Jerusalem, and told me that they were giving me back to the men that my husband worked for—"

"_Where _did they take you?"

"A building. It was old. I didn't see much, they blindfolded me and put me on the floor—"

"If you have nothing of use to tell me," Talal said, turning to go, "then I may as well leave you here."

It was a masterfully executed bluff. I scrambled to my feet after him, and cried out: "Wait!"

Talal turned, his eyebrows raised.

"I overheard—something," I said quickly, the words falling over themselves. "They were speaking to each other, when they thought I was sleeping, they were having an argument—some of them wanted to kill me, for being Tamir's widow, but one of them said that I was an innocent, and I should be returned—"

"Returned to who?"

"Templars," I said, intentionally stumbling over the word. "Is that what you are? Is that what my husband was?"

Talal was watching me. "Yes."

"He said you—Templars—would take me in. He said I would make a fitting gift for the Grand Master—is that you?"

"Yes," Talal said again.

He was a very good liar.

"Then—then it was _you_ of which they spoke. They said—" I stopped there, and swallowed.

"They said what?" Talal demanded impatiently.

"They said they would kill you," I whispered. "They said they could follow me and find you, after the slaver died."

He laughed, much to my surprise. "Of course they would," he said, sounding amused now. "They would like nothing better. And they thought it would be this easy, did they? And you would be the bait?"

"I—"

Talal wasn't listening. "This is what you will do," he informed me. "My men will take you to an associate of the assassins. They will leave you there. You will pass a message on for me."

"No!" I cried. "No, please, don't take me back to them—I just want to go home—"

He hit me again, hard enough that it would leave a bruise tomorrow. "If you do your part well," he said coldly, "then I will send you back to Damascus. If you do not, or if you refuse, then you can stay here, do you understand?"

"But—"

"Do you know what will happen to you, if you stay in this whorehouse?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"No," said Talal, his eyes glinting as he reached for me, "I don't think you do."

He had been expecting a struggle; I took care not to disappoint.

—

Talal did not give me the message until later, which was foolish of him; I could very easily have forgotten it in the midst of tears or hysterics or whatever I happened to be inclined towards. But then, the Templars had never been particularly famed for their wisdom.

"This is what you will say," he told me, his face so close to mine that I could see every twist in his braids. "You will tell them that they are fools, to have tried so transparent a scheme. You will tell them that the Grand Masters will hunt them all down. And you will tell them that they will pay for the death of Garnier de Naplouse."

My breath caught in my throat. "What?"

Garnier dead, but I had not given the order—

"Garnier de Naplouse," Talal said again, as though this were not news. "The name is Frankish. Take care that you do not forget it."

He had my chin in his fingers, forcing me to look up at him, and it was not so very hard to play the part of the despoiled virgin: all trembling and lamentation. "I won't," I said. "I swear."

"Good," he said, satisfied, and released me. "Behave yourself, and I will be back for you in three days."

* * *

A/N: This is what Talal thought the assassins were planning, based on what Isra told him: they would give Isra to him (that's "the slaver") and then kill him, and see where Isra ended up, because probably Talal's higher-up (the Grand Master) would have taken charge of her afterwards. I tried to make it fairly obvious but, well, just in case. I mean I know everything but that's only because I'm the author.

For some reason both the brothels in AC2 have names that are a variation on rose, so I went with another rose here.


	23. Jerusalem: Neutral Ground

A/N: Long chapter is long. Can't wait for Brotherhood; mutliplayer looks awesome.

* * *

Talal had his men take me to Yusuf.

It did not come as a surprise. Yusuf was a prominent enough merchant, after all, and he made regular shipments to and from Masyaf each month, so his alliance with the Hashshashin was hardly a secret; but he traded, too, with men who were friends of friends of the Templars, so he was not entirely unknown to them either. Talal was laying a trap of his own. Too close to the Assassins, and they might kill me; too close to the Templars, and the Assassins might not come. Yusuf was a compromise.

But I was glad that it was Yusuf, and not some other man, who came hurrying out to meet me when I was unceremoniously dropped on his doorstep—he knew full well who I was, and took me inside without any questions.

"Are you hurt?" he asked me, shooing away the waiting servants. "Do you need anything? What happened?"

"I need to have a message sent," I said, and sat down very suddenly in a nearby chair. "And—some food, please. And water." The madam had not bothered to feed me.

"You should rest," said Yusuf sternly—sounding, for a moment, so much like Shadha that I could not help but laugh.

"Later," I said. But I leaned back, despite my words, and closed my eyes for just a second. It had been a long morning; the day would drag on longer still.

Garnier de Naplouse was dead. I would have to hasten my plans, make rearrangements for the men in Acre and Damascus—

—and I could still feel Talal's fingers on my jaw, forcing me up to look at him, while he whispered his threats into my ears—

"A bath first, I think," I said aloud. "Can that be arranged?"

"Of course," said Yusuf, and was polite enough not to pry any further.

—

Despite his words it was the bath that came last; no amount of promises in the world could make water boil any faster on the stove, and Yusuf was too wealthy a man to even consider that I should wash with cold water. So it was the message first: a small scrap of paper, sent away with one of the kitchen boys, and he would take it to a house where he would give it to a man who would go elsewhere to another man who would smuggle it into the bureau in basket of figs—and all these precautions might have seemed ludicrous but Talal would have had men watching the house, now that he knew with certainty that I was in it, and I could not have the Templars discovering the location of the bureau.

Yusuf sent me off to Sarai's room afterwards, before I could brood any further, and made me eat.

I remembered what he brought me only because most of it ended up on the table. There was bread and fruit and roasted lamb, and I ate the lamb and half the bread and made a map of the rest; a fig each for Acre and Tyre, dates for Damascus and Jerusalem and Jaffa, a line of salt for the coast and scraps of bread for armies and pomegranate seeds for the assassins I could command—

"Your bath is ready, miss," said the maid from behind me, and I pushed away my plate and sighed.

I should not have been tired, but was. Certainly I had not lacked for sleep last night—yet I was yawning over my plans anyway, and it could not have been because I found them dull; perhaps I should have listened to Yusuf after all and rested before I attempted anything else. But there was no time.

We did not have enough men. We never did. The Templars had always had us outnumbered, and the siege of Masyaf had proven that beyond all doubt, but it was a worrying thing to have to think about it all the same.

"Miss?" the maid said again.

"Yes, thank you," I said, and sent her away before she could offer to help me wash.

The bathtub was large enough for me to nearly lie down in—an impressive luxury, considering that I had spent the past few weeks washing in a basin of cold water—and there were three kinds of soap, too, and scented oil, and perfume, and the water was hot against my skin as I stepped into it. Steam came rising into my hair. I sighed, and ducked my head underwater, and wondered how many men we could relocate to Damascus.

Heavy thoughts for an afternoon bath.

I came up again, rueful, and reached for the soap.

—

Perhaps I should not have sent the maid away after all. I had not wanted her to see my bruises and then go gossiping off to the world—so of course I fell asleep in the bath, and of course it was Altair who saw the results of Talal's untender mercies when he came bursting in upon me half an hour later; afterwards Altair would claim that he had knocked first, but perhaps he should have knocked a little _louder_ before leaping to the conclusion that I had drowned.

It took more talent than I had to kill myself in a knee-high tub, though possibly Altair might have managed it.

In any case, when I awoke it was to the touch of fingers beneath my chin, and so soon after Talal I did not think: _ah, it is merely an ally who has come to check on me_; but rather I startled awake, and upwards, and attempted to break his fingers.

"Isra—"

The warning came too late. We went tumbling to the floor in a flurry of water and cloth and rose-scented oil as I flung myself at him and twisted, and then we were both on our feet again at opposite ends of the room, staring at each other with knives in our hands.

I had taken mine from his belt. Altair seemed a little surprised to find it missing.

"Safety and peace," he said, low. "I mean you no harm."

As though I was a skittish horse that needed soothing. I straightened up, irritated, and cast about for something to cover myself with. "You startled me," I said.

"It was not my intention," said Altair, which was as close to an apology as I would ever get.

He caught the knife one-handed when I tossed it back to him. "You must have received my message," I said, wrapping a cloth around myself for what little was left of my modesty. "Garnier is dead. Sarai ought to have sent a letter, at least, but perhaps it was delayed, though I haven't heard of any blockades—are you really going to stand there and stare at me while I get dressed?"

Altair didn't answer.

He came up to me instead, close, and touched my cheek, and said: "He hit you."

"If you mean Talal," I remarked dryly, "then he did rather more than that." Altair had already seen the bruises, on my arms and elsewhere; they were not so difficult to decipher.

He let his hand drop. "You should not have let him."

"You think I should have fought him, then?" I asked. "Talal himself, and all the guards that he had brought—"

"You should not have gone at all," said Altair, looking coolly furious now.

I sighed. "It was necessary."

"He _touched_ you," Altair spat out. "And you _allowed_ this, you went to this place knowing full well what would happen—"

"And only three nights ago, you accused me of not knowing anything at all."

A pause.

Then: "I have changed my mind," Altair said coldly. "Clearly you knew more than I suspected."

I stared.

Then I sat down, because I was too tired to slap him, and raked my fingers through my damp hair and put my elbow into a stray piece of bread on the tabletop. "You think I'm a harlot," I said.

His silence was answer enough.

I was too tired to glare, too, so I only looked at Altair, who looked back at me with his eyes all dark and disdainful, and I had to stamp down hard on the urge to throw a plate at his head.

"You have no idea what it is that I do," I said, "or why, or how I do it, and you have never bothered to ask; and you will come to me now and accuse me of being unchaste, while there are Templars on the hunt?"

"I have not accused—"

"Only _barely_ have you restrained yourself."

"I—"

"No." My voice was sharper than I had thought it would be; perhaps I was not so tired after all, or perhaps one of Altair's secret skills was the ability to irritate me beyond belief. "That is enough. You are a fool—and you will _hold your tongue_, ibn la-Ahad, until you can recite the terms of my duty as well as I, or else I will strip you of what little rank you have regained and have you punished for insubordination. Do you understand?"

I could see his jaw clench. "Yes," he said after a moment. "I understand."

"How fast can you ride to Damascus?"

Altair looked a little startled at the sudden change in topic, but answered anyway: "Three days, if I leave tonight. Maybe two."

"Good." I flicked a pomegranate seed across the table. The cloth was slipping down around my shoulders, but I was too tired too care. "Go back to the bureau. Malik will give you a feather. Kill Abu'l Nuquod. Do you know him?"

"The merchant king of Dimashq," Altair said, his eyes flickering over my makeshift map.

"Yes. Make it public, if you can. But an obvious death—no subtle poisons in his evening wine, no accidental slips from his horse—"

He nodded once, curtly.

"Good," I said again, tracing out lines on the tabletop, and did not bother to glace up. "You can ride to Masyaf afterwards."

"Masyaf?"

"So you can report to Al Mualim and request a reassignment."

For a moment Altair looked as though he wanted to protest.

But years and years of training won out over indignation. He pressed his lips together and bowed instead, and only said: "As you command."

—

I would have liked for that to have been the end of our conversation, but it wasn't. There were tactics to discuss and plans to go over and notes to write, so I got dressed and found a quill somewhere, and wished that Malik had come instead, and scrawled down all the things I needed to tell him that I would not have trusted to let some servant boy carry. Talal's intentions and my intentions and Al Mualim's intentions—and Templar plots, and Hashshashin plots—ah, there were so many of them, and I was too tired to be sure that I was keeping track properly, so I gave Altair the stern injunction that he have Malik review everything and tried to send him off.

"Wait," Altair said, stretching out his hand. And, "I brought you this."

Silver chain threading through my fingers, and the warmth of the charm against my skin—"Oh," I said, blinking down at it.

Altair bowed again, and was gone.

—

In the morning, I would remember that I had forgotten to thank him.

But in the morning I would also remember that Altair was an absolute ass, at which point I felt disinclined to ever speak to him again, so perhaps in the end the two sentiments canceled each other out.

—

Talal came for me on the third day, as he had promised, and this surprised me to no end because I had never thought of Talal as the sort of man who would keep his word. Three days, he had said—and it would more likely have been two or four instead of three, in case the Assassins should think to lay a trap for him when he came.

Alas, we did not have the men for an ambush, but Talal did not know that; furthermore, the man was a slaver, and I had never thought that he would give much consideration to honor when it interfered with practicality. But it seemed that I had misjudged.

Though to be entirely accurate, Talal did not come for me himself.

He sent two of his thugs to knock on Yusuf's door. They took me to a courtyard and sat me down on a bench and after a few moments Talal came out and joined me; he was wearing another fine tunic today, this one all curling red embroidery on black cloth, and the colors were so close to the robes that the rafiks wore that I was forced to stifle a giggle.

"Sayyid," I murmured instead, looking down into my lap, "I am grateful that you have not forgotten me."

Talal was in high spirits today, all smiling and jovial; something must have gone well for him. "Ah, who could forget a woman as lovely as you?" he asked. "Tamir was a lucky man to have possessed such a treasure. Come, no need to be shy—look at me, girl."

Oh, sometimes it enraged me, how easily men thought a woman could be broken—but sometimes, it was useful. I looked at him. "I'm not afraid of you," I whispered.

Talal laughed outright. "Don't lie," he said. "You'll only embarrass yourself in trying. Tell me, did you deliver the message?"

I tangled my fingers in my skirt. "Yes, sayyid. Every word." I peered at him, drew in a deep breath. "They said—they said that the Templars would pay for their arrogance. They said to tell you that Abu'l Nuquod will die for his crimes."

The laughter went out of his face very quickly.

"Abu'l Nuquod," Talal said coldly. "No. That is impossible."

I shrank away from him. "I'm sorry, it is only what they told me—"

"He is too well protected!" Talal snapped. "He is a wealthy, powerful man; do these assassins think that he will topple like a pawn simply because they will it so?"

"I'm sorry!" I cried again. "They said that if you did not believe the message, you had only to wait a scant handful of days for the news to come from Damascus! They said that by tonight, he is already surely dead!"

"Get out of my sight," Talal said, getting to his feet. He was shaking with rage. "You there, take her away—"

"But you promised that I would be returned home!" Heavy hands were dragging me upwards by the arms. I struggled. "Yusuf al-Tamun will not harbor me forever—"

Talal turned on me.

"You'll be returned home when I see fit, and not a moment sooner," he snarled, "so you had best find some way of convincing al-Tamun to keep you on. Now leave before I decide that you can go back to the brothels or worse."

The last I saw of him was his back, moving away from me stiff and furious as I was dragged around a corner, and the fine black cloth of his tunic was crinkling all over with the force of his rage.

—

On the fourth day I went to the bureau.

I asked Yusuf for some boys' clothing, and put on my pendant, and went slipping out of the house as though I were a kitchen boy sent out on an errand. The burly man who had been lingering on the bench across the street barely glanced at me as I went scurrying past. Doubtless he would have stopped me had I not had the shard of the Piece of Eden; it felt a little like cheating now, to hold the pendant and go by unnoticed.

But I was not in the mood for a streetside brawl. I was in the mood for sightseeing.

Ah, it was such an exhilarating thing, to go dashing through the streets unescorted; I had not had such freedom since my days in training at Masyaf. I had to be protected—by Idris, by Tamir's guards and Nadia, then by Altair and Malik and Yusuf—and it was a necessary precaution, certainly, but I had never liked having restrictions, and I had not had much of a chance to see Jerusalem; and so the twenty-minute walk to the bureau took a little more than an hour and a half, and when I came tumbling into the courtyard I was a little out of breath and Malik raised his eyebrows at the flush on my cheeks.

"Isra," he said, rising from his map-laden desk to greet me. "Were you chased here?"

"No," I said, laughing, and tucked the pendant away into my pocket. Malik had not seen it yet; I was loath to share the secret even with my fellow assassins. "But I went through the markets, and past the church, and the streets were very crowded, so I had to push a little. Oh, do not frown at me so; I did not see much of Jerusalem with Altair on my heels—"

"Of course," Malik said dryly. "He was never one for sightseeing. Try not to get caught, will you? It would be troublesome for us all."

There was humor in his words, but Malik did not sound as though he were making a joke; his voice was oddly brittle. I peered at him. He looked—thinner. And unhappy.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Fine," he said, sinking back down into his seat. "Tired. There has been much to do."

I stripped off the scarf that covered my hair and tossed it onto a nearby shelf. "Is that all?"

"Yes," Malik snapped at me.

It would be rude of me to pry. I sat down beside him instead, and very pointedly waited for him to speak.

"Altair told me that you had met Talal," Malik said. "What was he like, this slaver?"

I considered. "Mercurial."

His eyebrows went up again. I shrugged. Well, it was true; Talal was the most temperamental man I had ever met. "What else did Altair tell you?"

"That this slaver had hurt you," he said, very serious.

"I knew the risks," I said. "And there are worse things, anyway, and this is going well as it is."

"But what if he had taken you? What if this slaver had not left you with Yusuf? What would your plan have been then?"

"Then I would have had to improvise." And, at Malik's expression: "Oh, come now, there are _certainly_ worse things than that, and I have already had to improvise quite a bit. Have faith."

"And did your improvised plan require that Altair be reassigned?" Malik asked, looking deeply skeptical.

"Oh," I said darkly. "That. No, the reassignment is because Altair is an insufferable ass."

This startled him into laughing, though he still looked disapproving. "Well," Malik said, and with a visible effort convinced himself to drop the subject. "Letters for you," he added, nodding at the stack on the desk. "And reports. Will you read them here?"

I rifled through them, frowning. A letter from Masyaf, one from Damascus, and then two others stained by salt water that spoke of long sea journeys—but nothing from Acre. What was Sarai thinking? "Here is fine," I said absently. "How many couriers have come through while I was gone?"

"Only two," Malik said. "One from Masyaf through Damascus, and the other direct from Acre—but no news from the Windflower. Not even the Acre rafik knows where she is."

Sarai was _missing_? "Is he looking for her?"

"No. She left orders that no attempt be made to track her."

Then she had planned this, at least. I sighed and went through my letters. Masyaf and Damascus and Cairo and Italy—it was as though everyone had conspired to time their missives so that they would all arrive at once. Shadha was still in Saladin's court, watching over political squabbles amongst the emirs that had little to do with us; the Damascus rafik had written a report of all being calm within the city—news that would become woefully out of date as soon as Altair carried out his mission.

From Italy came a withered oleander blossom, news of troops being mustered in Europe, a cryptic warning scrawled on parchment: _the virtues of heaven are on the hunt_; I had no idea what it meant. But the letter had been intended for for Sarai—there was a windflower sketched across the bottom of the note—and passed on to me secondhand, so perhaps I did not need to know what it meant. I set it aside.

From Masyaf, Al Mualim had sent orders that the Templar Grand Master of Jerusalem should remained unharmed until he gave the order.

He must be planning something grander. The entire letter was rather a longer response than I had anticipated; I had only asked him what should be done, and Al Mualim had written back with a good five pages of philosophy on how we were working to stop a war and the Templars were working to prolong it. I skimmed through the first page. It was not, precisely, that I disliked philosophy, but philosophy tended to complicate things, even orders—

And suddenly, the philosophy stopped.

A different hand began entirely—and I nearly dropped the letter in shock, for drawn across the top of the page was a sun's eye tulip.

"What happened?" Malik demanded. I jumped. I had forgotten he was there.

"Rasha," I said, spreading the sheets out before me on the table. "Kaddar's—well—you must remember her."

"I remember her," Malik said musingly. "She almost broke my nose once."

Every man I spoke to seemed to have some recollection of Rasha doing them violence. "She's sent me a letter. I haven't heard from her in _months_; she ran, after—"

"Yes." His voice was cold as he interrupted me. "I remember _that_, too."

Yes. He would. "I'm sorry," I murmured, dropping my head over the pages; I had not meant to remind him of his brother's death. "Ah, this is in cipher. I'll have to take it with me."

"You could stay," Malik offered. "Your room is still ready."

"No, this might take me a while, and I'll want to be with Yusuf if Talal comes to check on me—" I broke off. Malik had the oddest expression on his face. "Are you sure you're all right?"

The expression disappeared. "I'm _fine_," he said, sounding annoyed now. "There is no need to hover over me like a mother hen."

"If you say so."

"There's no need to sound so doubtful about it, either!" Malik snapped.

"Yes, rafik," I said meekly, gathering up the scattered letter, and Malik leaned back in his chair with a sound of frustration and glowered at me.

"You're doing this on purpose," he accused. "I should have listened to Altair when he tried to warn me. Stop _smiling_ like that."

"Like what?"

"Like—" Malik threw his arm up in surrender. "Never mind," he said, rueful. "Go if you must. I will have messages redirected to you, and you know where to find me if you require aid."

—

It took me the better part of the night to decipher Rasha's letter, and the news made me uneasy. What she was doing—it could not have been ordered by Al Mualim. She must have insisted.

If this was for Kaddar—

Sometimes I was grateful that I had never been in love.

* * *

A/N:

Me: are you seriously going to say all this?

Altair: yup

Me: ...you're a _dick_.

Altair: yup

Me: how do you still have so many fangirls?

Altair: are you kidding? i'm totally _hot_. have you seen the stuff they have of me over at deviantart?

Notes: There are two planting seasons in Syria: summer and winter. The rainy season is the winter one, beginning in late October and going through April; that's for more water-intensive plants like wheat and barley. Plants that require less water—chickpeas, dates, figs—are cultivated over the summer and harvested in the fall. (In-story, it is currently early September-ish.)

Of course the entire area is pretty arid, so you're not going to be seeing vast fields of rice paddies even in the winter.

Two questions that I've been meaning to address:

1) How does this fit into canon? Where are Adha and Maria?

I have to admit that I'd only played AC1 when I started (and mapped out the course of) this fic, and even afterwards I've only played AC2; I haven't touched any of the games for DS or PSP or whatever. (Also I tried reading _Renaissance_ but it was terrible, the dialogue was cribbed directly from the game and wasn't described with any sincerity, so I couldn't get through it.) I wrote "Bitter Leaves" so that it would be believable within the structure of AC1, but never took into account anything from the peripheral materials, so Maria definitely exists, since she plays a fairly major role in AC1, but Adha is a little shakier. I caught the reference to her in-game but it was just one line from an unnamed NPC, and I hadn't played Altair's Chronicles, and I really didn't want her continuing existence mucking up the path of the story I'd planned—so yeah, she was in Jerusalem/Tyre and Altair knew her and everything, but she's dead already. Apologies to all the Adha/Altair shippers out there.

Alternatively, you could also think of this whole thing as an AU, since Isra doesn't actually exist.

2) Hardcore Muslims, women, and the world of the Third Crusade: How historically accurate is my portrayal of empowered females in the culture of the time and place?

Short answer: eh. You're talking about a secret sect of assassins who are fighting another secret sect that's been changing history since the dawn of human evolution. Nothing's historically accurate here, but I've done my best to make things plausible and internally consistent within the world of Assassin's Creed within the bigger world of actual history.

There was actually a long answer that was a two-page essay on misconceptions people have on the Middle East, but it's really too long to pose here.


	24. Jerusalem: Debriefing

A/N: Changed the last line of the last chapter, if you read ch23 before 8/6/10.

* * *

On the fifth day, Sarai came sweeping into Jerusalem with the first of the summer harvest.

She did not do it with any sort of subtlety. I had stayed up so late the night before that I slept straight through the call to morning prayer, and then the call to noon prayer, too, and it was only the sound of horses and wagons beneath my window that woke me in the early afternoon; downstairs, there were voices raised in conversation and the heavy _thump_ of something hitting the ground. I sat up, alarmed.

"Miss," said the maid, hovering anxiously at the door, "Yusuf's cousin has returned early from her trip, and you're in her room—"

Yusuf's cousin—Sarai, who had been missing for a week, who had killed Garnier de Naplouse and then simply _disappeared_— "Where has she _been_?" I demanded, scrambling to my feet.

"At her uncle's estate, she told me—she's brought all of her things back with her, and her trunks need to be moved in—"

I was almost at the door before I remembered that of course I could not go charging downstairs. "Does she know I'm here?" I asked the maid. "I need to see her. Ask her to come up."

Now the maid looked slightly affronted. "You cannot be giving her orders, miss! She is the master's cousin."

"Ask her _politely_, then," I snapped, not in the mood to suffer delays. But the maid drew herself up, indignant now, and opened her mouth to speak—

"_Isra_!" Sarai cried, bursting into the room with Yusuf on her heels. "What are you _doing_ here? I heard you were _dead_!"

—

"Well, I did," Sarai said later; she had cleared everyone out of the room with startling efficiency, and ordered the maid to bring up some wine and honey cakes, and then she had shut the door, leaving Yusuf downstairs to oversee the unloading of the last of her luggage. "I was halfway to Jerusalem when I heard that Talal had found you and you were going to be executed—only rumors from some Templar soldiers at an inn, but I was so worried! What were you _doing_? Isra, what happened to your face?"

I touched my cheek ruefully; the bruise had mostly faded, but I should not have been surprised that Sarai had noticed. "Talal happened," I said. "He panicked after Garnier de Naplouse died."

"_Oh_." Sarai and sat down on the edge of the bed, contrite. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he would move that quickly—but I couldn't stay in Acre."

"Garnier suspected you?"

Sarai shook her head. "He was too in love with me to even think it," she said, and I could not tell if she were sorry or not, "and it was someone else, anyway. I'm sorry I didn't write a letter; there wasn't any time."

And she told me about the Virtues of Heaven, who were trying to kill her.

I had known, of course, that we Assassins were not the only ones who killed for a cause; powerful men and powerful governments everywhere kept agents to carry out tasks that were not strictly legal, and they all specialized in death in one way or another. Salah al-Din had spies in the Crusader camps; the Crusaders had spies in Salah al-Din's court; Guy de Lusignon so distrusted his allies that he had Conrad of Montferrat watched; the Templars were ostensibly supporting the Crusaders but were courting the emir of Damascus and the eastern sultanate both at once; the king of Sicily had a grudge against the English that the French were eager to exploit—and so on beyond the point of all reason; there were nearly a dozen competing intelligence networks crisscrossing the path of the war, with so many spies and counterspies and plots within plots that I could barely keep track, and the list was growing ever longer.

These are the Virtues: personal agents of the Christian pope sent to Acre at the Templars' request, with all the deceit and intrigue that such an alliance implied. The Templars knew that the Assassins were behind much of the machinations in the Holy Land, of course—but Rome would have demanded answers before they would send out their own men to hunt us down—

"I think one of the Grand Masters is related to the pope," Sarai said thoughtfully.

I sighed. "Does France know? England?"

"I don't think so," Sarai said, "just the Templars, because they seemed to want to keep this a secret; there was only one man sent to Acre. Usually they work in threes, I think."

But even one man had been enough to frighten Sarai into fleeing the city, and Sarai did not frighten easily. She blushed when I pointed this out to her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's only that—he found me once, when I was leaving Garnier's hospice, and he cornered me in an alley and asked me all sorts of questions—" She shook her head, helplessly. "I ran as soon as I could. Isra, I think he knew who I was."

I put my head down on the table and groaned.

After a moment, Sarai patted my hand, tentatively. "I'm sorry," she said again.

"No, it's all right," I said, my voice a little muffled by the wood. "I'm sure you did what was best with Garnier. I was only wishing that Shadha were here; she would know what to do."

"Shadha is in Cairo."

"I don't see why," I said gloomily, lifting my head up. "The royal court is doing nothing that relates to us."

Sarai patted my hand again. "I'm sure Al Mualim has his reasons," she said.

"And I wish he would tell me what they were," I said, even more gloomily. "Sarai, I can understand why he is having us move against the Saracen Templars, and I can even understand why he has allowed Rasha to give herself over to Robert de Sable—"

"_What_?" said Sarai.

I had forgotten to tell her about Rasha in the flurry of other news. "She's in de Sable's camp," I said, nudging the letter over. "This is how Al Mualim has been tracking him; I was wondering how he was getting news, after Tamir died."

Sarai read it through.

She was furious; I could tell because the corners of her mouth had turned down a little, and when she set the letter down again it was with more force than necessary. "I don't like it," she said. "Al Mualim couldn't have asked her to do this."

Al Mualim would not have asked this of her, but he would not have stopped her, either, if she had taken this task upon herself; we might have sent some other man to play at espionage in de Sable's company but Rasha could do it better than any of them. Sarai only looked unhappy when I pointed this out.

"Doesn't she know how dangerous it is?" she demanded.

It was impossible that she was unaware of the risks. "I don't think she cares, Sarai."

Now Sarai _did_ frown. "Isra, she's in Robert de Sable's camp pretending to be one of his soldiers—if she's _caught_—"

"I don't think she cares," I said again. "Sarai, I don't like it either, but you know we can't recall her—even if she were willing to come, even if we could put someone else in her place without any trouble—we can't run the risk of contacting her. This whole operation was to be secret. And I don't want to ruin whatever Al Mualim's planning. either; that might only put her in even more danger—"

"I _know_," Sarai said fretfully. "I just—this is _Kaddar's_ fault, and I don't even know why, because he's _dead_."

A morbid thought, even for Sarai, and we stared at each other across the table.

"She loved him," I said; it was the only thing I could think of. Sarai shook her head impatiently.

"She should have known better anyway," she said.

—

Night came quickly to Jerusalem in the fading summer. We brought up candles when it grew dark, and together we unpacked her trunks by flickering candlelight: boxes of shoes and scarves and gowns, jewelry tangled in glittering heaps, books and inkwells and scattered pieces of parchment everywhere. There were jars of herbs, too, tucked carefully into the corners so that they would not shatter, and one trunk had a false bottom that revealed neat rows of small glass vials when we pried it up; "Poisons, mostly," said Sarai, showing me a murky green liquid that might have been pond scum for all I knew, "although some of them are for pain, or fever. Here, this is the one I used on Garnier—"

And she told me how the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitalier had died.

Neither of us felt very much like unpacking afterwards. I told her about Tamir, instead, and Talal too, and the whole tangled mess that was Altair and Malik; and Sarai told me about siege-ruined Acre and hospices filled with dying men; and we sat on the floor together and shared a flagon of wine between us. In Masyaf we had begged stories from the assassins who came to visit the fortress garden—but they had always dwelled more on the glory, and less on the blood.

"And soon Khalid will come and cluck at us and tell us to speak of gentler things," Sarai said. She sounded a little wistful; it was too late for us to be anything gentle.

"Khalid never told us stories at all," I reminded her. "Except for that one about a girl who cut off her hair and joined the army to prove that she was as good as any man, except she wasn't, and she fell off a cliff and died, and shamed her family so thoroughly that they would not give her a burial."

Sarai put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. "He made that one up to frighten us."

It hadn't worked; we had known, even then, that Al Mualim would not abandon us for anything less than high treason. Altair had broken all the tenets of the Creed and _he_ was yet in service—

I did not want to think about Altair.

"I always wanted to grow up quickly," I told Sarai, "and do grand things, like in the stories we heard. But I wish they hadn't left so many things out when they were telling them."

"There are always unpleasant moments," Sarai said thoughtfully, "but they did not lie about the glory." She drew her fingers around the edge of her wine-cup, the heavy bronze of it glinting at me in the dimming candlelight; oh, I could almost imagine us back in Masyaf, were it not for the candles and the wine and the finery— "Isra, why are you unhappy?"

Because nothing I had done had ever felt glorious.

My cup was empty. The wine was too sweet; I did not want any more. "I'm not unhappy," I said.

"All right," said Sarai, and did not press the subject further.

* * *

A/N: Since a bunch of people have expressed interest in my long rant about the Middle East, and since I'm pretty sure that it's too long to post in a private message, I'm sticking the whole thing in Chapter 5 of Appendices, which you can find through my profile page.


	25. Jerusalem: Malik al Sayf

In the morning, news came to Jerusalem that Abu'l Nuquod had died.

I had not forgotten about Altair. He was impossible to forget—reckless and arrogant and dangerous all at once, and unrepentant, too—no, Altair was the sort of man who made an impression, and once you gave him a mission you could not help but wonder fretfully at how he would carry it through.

But then, perhaps that was only me; Altair was, after all, Al Mualim's best assassin.

In any case I need not have worried about this particular mission. Altair dispatched it better than I could ever have hoped—and the details were hazy, trickling into Jerusalem slow and hesitant, but what little I heard was encouraging. Ah, it sounded like a grand tale: a merchant king, a fountain spilling blood, poisoned wine and the specter of death—

This was a death to taunt the Templars with—and oh, they were _furious_ when they heard.

Rumors were unreliable. Anything could have happened and people might spin an elaborate tale about it—Abu'l Nuquod might not be truly dead, only poisoned or wounded, or it might not have been assassins at all, or perhaps everything was an elaborate hoax dreamed up for some reason or other—and the Templars would believe nothing until one of their own brought confirmation. We knew, almost to the hour, when their couriers arrived. That was the hour that four burly thugs showed up at Yusuf's door and set up camp outside every entrance and exit to the house.

Talal was not a very subtle man.

It was a pity that my association with the Assassins had to be hidden so, or else I would have sent the maid out to bring these guards some wine; it would have been worth at least an hour's amusement to watch them wonder if the refreshments had been poisoned or not. In any case, that was the end of my plans for the day. I had thought to visit the markets with Sarai, and perhaps go to the bureau afterwards—but of course we could not go now; the house was being watched, and Sarai had never been given use of a shard of Eden as disguise.

So we waited, instead. Fortunately for my patience, the Templars did not take long to act: the very next day, the city had been put into a state of high alert.

—

The rumors had grown more outrageous overnight. The maid insisted that there had been eagles involved, sweeping down to knock over the goblets of poisoned wine; the street-sweeper said that she was mad, and that only Saladin's soldiers had appeared; the cook contradicted them both by insisting that Abu'l Nuquod had faked his own death and there had been no one there at all—which rather begged the question of how everyone knew about it.

What was not rumor, however, was the extra guard presence on the streets and the heralds shouting out the news in every plaza; powerful men in Damascus and Jerusalem and elsewhere were afraid for their lives.

"He's very good," Sarai said softly, as we sat by the window and listened to the distant calls of the city criers: _beware the honorless assassins, who strike men down in their own homes, who breach every sacred rule of hospitality_—

"He's the best," I said—gloomily, because I was complimenting Altair. "I hope Al Mualim sends him somewhere far away."

—_beware the assassins, who would violate a man's trust for their own gain_—

"He's very useful," said Sarai, and it was true: two days ago Jerusalem had been a placid city; now all the officials were in a frenzy over Abu'l Nuquod's death. But I still did not like Altair. He was Al Mualim's best assassin, so surely the Master could find another use for him somewhere else—in Cyprus, perhaps, or maybe even Italy, and then Altair could be troubling oleander instead of me. It was not only the arrogance—arrogance, I could have understood—but everything else that came with it—

And there was no use fuming over him when he was not even here, but it was so hard _not_ to, especially when I was reminded of him every time I glanced out a window and glimpsed Talal's watchdogs.

They were there the next morning, too, and the morning after that, skulking in the shadows in what they doubtless thought was an inconspicuous manner; but by then I was impatient enough that I had decided to chance a trip to the bureau anyway. Jerusalem had calmed a little from the initial frenzy—or at least, all the heralds had been sent home, though the guard patrols were still out in full force and of course there was nothing I could do about the rumors—still, it seemed safe enough, especially as I did not think very highly of Talal's guards. They napped on benches, they drank while on duty, they grumbled if their shift ended late—

But most importantly of all, they never looked up.

There were too many of them for me to slip out disguised as a kitchen-boy this time, but it was not such a difficult thing to climb atop the garden wall and jump to the neighbor's roof. The man stationed at the rear gate was too busy yawning to notice my shadow as it went across—oh, perhaps I was too used to the severe discipline of the Assassins, but if _I_ had been his training-master then he would be scrubbing extra pots for a week—then I was scrambling upwards into the neighbor's rooftop garden, flowers waving at me as I passed, and none of Talal's men were any the wiser by the time I was two streets over.

After that, the city guards gave me no trouble. Perhaps they might have stopped me if Sarai had been there—but Sarai had always been better at waiting than I, so she had elected to stay behind. It was easy to go slipping through Jerusalem unseen.

—

The rooftop entrance to the bureau was locked. For a panicked moment I thought that something had happened to Malik, until I remembered that the rooftop entrance was always locked in case of a citywide alert.

But the front door was locked, too. I shoved my palm into it in frustration and wished that I'd learned lockpicking. "Malik," I said into the wood, "Malik, it's me, let me in."

No one answered.

Another panicked moment. Perhaps he had been kidnapped. Perhaps the Templars had found our location. Perhaps everyone in Jerusalem was compromised—

A hand fell on my shoulder.

I was rather proud that I did not shriek. I was, however, less proud when I spun around and slammed my elbow into Malik's jaw; I had recognized him too late to stop the swing of my arm. "You _bastard_," he snarled at me, and staggered back.

"I'm sorry, you startled me—"

"Who _are_ you?"

Oh. I scrambled to tug off the pendant; well, at least Malik had not hit me when I'd come up unrecognized. "It's me," I said, "I'm sorry I hit you, I thought you were a guard—"

"No," Malik said grimly. "Not here. Just—just wait a moment." He rubbed his jaw ruefully and reached into his pocket for his keys. A basket of bread had been set down nearby on the street; he had only been out shopping, and not kidnapped at all, and the bureau was not compromised, or our agents either—

I let out a sigh of relief. Malik looked at me, wary.

"I'm not going to hit you again," I said, but somehow he didn't seem much reassured by this. But Malik said nothing; merely held the door open for me, and brought the bread inside afterwards, and then shut the door again and glowered.

"So you've been given a Piece of Eden," he said bitterly, nodding at the silver pendant in my hands. "I should have known. What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."

"Abu'l Nuquod is dead," Malik snapped. "Every courier out of Damascus is delayed. There hasn't been any news in days—and if there had been, I would have sent a messenger, so there was no need for you to run the risk of coming here!"

And he punctuated this by setting the basket down on the desk with so much force that a bun came rolling out and tumbled onto the floor.

I stared. "Malik, are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be all right?" he demanded. "There's no need to interrogate me." He flung himself into a chair and scowled at the piles and piles of maps around us; I was surprised that they did not catch fire at his glare. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"Are you sure?"

"_Yes_."

I considered him, carefully, and leaned my hip against the edge of the desk. "You're lying."

His mouth twisted. "It's none of your affair."

"The first time I asked," I said, "you said everything was fine, and the second time too, and every time after that—Malik, we are all in the same brotherhood, so do not tell me it is none of my affair what the Jerusalem rafik does—"

"My brother died for that lump of silver," he said harshly, cutting me off. "_That_ is what's wrong—are you happy now?"

I frowned at him. "Not really."

Malik laughed, short and unamused. "That's two of us, then."

I twisted the silver chain around my fingers. Malik was watching me with his eyes narrowed; oh, he had looked at Altair like that, when the two of them had argued with silence—

What did Malik want?

"I'm sorry," I said at last. "I shouldn't have left you here alone; that was thoughtless of me."

"I don't need your pity," Malik snapped.

Not precisely the opening I'd been hoping for, but anything would do. "I only meant that you shouldn't be here by yourself," I said. "Perhaps it isn't the Templars who find you, but this can be a dangerous neighborhood, especially if you go out alone—"

He was on his feet in a flash, his chair crashing into the shelf behind him as he moved. "I can take care of myself," Malik said, furious now, and actually _growled_ when I shot a dubious glance at his empty sleeve. "Do you think that I've forgotten all my training?" he demanded. "Do you think I cannot hold a sword? I am not some helpless civilian who needs protecting, and you insult me by insinuating it!"

"Then prepare to be more than insulted," I snapped back, "because it is not an _insinuation_; it's true."

Malik stared at me for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was tight and clipped: "If you were a man, I would strike you for this affront."

"Why hold back, simply because I am not a man?" I asked. "Challenge me for your honor if you like. Are you afraid you'll lose?"

"I'm afraid I'll _hurt you_," Malik said; his hand was clenched so tightly I could see his knuckles going white.

"Or perhaps you're afraid of something else," I said. "Perhaps you're afraid to realize how helpless you really are, now. Malik, it was wrong of me to suggest a challenge, especially when you're at such a disadvantage, but you must admit—"

Pity worked better than insults ever had; one moment I was speaking, and in the next I was gasping for breath as Malik seized my collar and hauled me forward. "I have not forgotten how to fight," he said, low and dangerous, "and it was not my sword arm that I lost."

"So that is a challenge, then?" I asked.

He let me go. His lips were pressed into a thin, furious line, and his eyes were very cold.

"Courtyard," Malik said. "Now."

—

We went to the courtyard. Malik tore off his coat, careless, and tossed it aside onto a pile of overturned pots. "Swords, then?" he demanded, too angry to think about what he was doing. "Knives? Daggers? Name your terms."

"No weapons," I said mildly. I unwound the scarf from around my hair. My braid came tumbling out; long hair was a hazard in close quarters, as Idris had showed me years and years ago, but there was no help for it now. "There's no need to risk drawing blood."

"Fine."

I squinted at him from across the cluttered courtyard. "I'm ready," I said.

He moved.

His first blow went glancing off my shoulder as I ducked aside. His second blow just barely missed my ear, and the third went whistling through empty air as I scrambled backwards as quickly as I could; oh I was very badly outmatched, and there was no point at all in trying to win. Malik was an aggressive fighter, pressing forward for any advantage—nothing at all like Idris, who had always defended until the very end, or like Rasha, who liked to dance circles around her opponents, or like Altair, who relied mostly on counterattacks.

I eyed Malik warily. He was taller, and stronger, and had a longer reach, and more experience; I was slightly faster, and had both my arms. And, of course, Malik underestimated me, as most men did when fighting a woman, so perhaps I could manage not to embarrass myself, though the chance of _that _was looking slimmer by the moment. Ah, well. Such were the things I did for Masyaf.

I darted in. Malik seized me by the elbow as I came towards him, but my other elbow hit his ribs and my knee went into his stomach; he doubled over, gasping for breath. It had been purely a stroke of luck—he had not been expecting me to make a move—and I made the most out of it, seizing his shoulders and sweeping out with my leg, and in the next moment Malik went tumbling onto his back.

He stared up at me, stunned.

It would be suicide to engage in a wrestling match. I danced backwards, out of reach, and grinned wildly as he scrambled to pick himself up—oh, that had been excellent, even Idris would have been impressed by that—

"I thought you hadn't forgotten how to fight," I called to Malik, a little taunting, and still flushed with exhilaration. He scowled at me.

After that, though, he made no more mistakes.

—

I lasted for perhaps another five minutes. The endgame, when it came, was quick and brutal: Malik cornered me and slammed me against a wall.

"Do you yield?" he demanded, his forearm against my throat.

It was not _quite_ the end, because I had just enough room to kick him and try to twist away. Malik learned his lesson. The next time he slammed me against the wall, he did it with the full force of his body—and then he blinked down at me in bewilderment, apparently remembering, for the second time that day, that I was a woman.

"Those are my breasts," I said helpfully.

Malik opened his mouth, and then shut it again, as though he couldn't decide whether to apologize or repeat his demand for capitulation. "I—" he said. And: "This isn't fair."

"No," I agreed. "Are you going to let go of me?"

"Do you yield?"

"No."

He stared. "_Isra_," he growled, "what are you doing?"

Pushing him, to see where he might crack; but of course I could not tell him so. "What will you do, if I refuse to yield?" I asked curiously. "Hold me here forever? It might grow a bit inconvenient, after a while—"

"There are other things I could do," Malik snapped.

And, furious and impatient, he leaned down and kissed me.

It was a bluff—and not a particularly well-executed one, either. The kiss was hard and angry and full of bitterness, and Malik had fully been expecting me to slap him; oh, he should not have done such a thing at all if he had not been willing to follow it through—

I curled my fingers around his shoulders, and pulled him closer, and kissed him back.

There was a moment of agonized indecision on his end. "Wait," Malik said, sounding torn; his breath was coming ragged against my cheek. "Wait, this isn't—I didn't—"

"Are you a man or not?" I demanded.

Later I would feel guilty for saying it, but in the moment there was only the exhilaration of seeing it work. Malik stared at me for a moment, stunned.

And then he kissed me again, and this time he did not stop.

—

We went to my room. Malik's was larger, of course, but it would have seemed like too much on an intrusion—

A foolish sentiment. I had intruded quite far already, and would go even further—but my room it was, because sometimes there was no point in denying sentiment, and afterwards we lay together on my pallet and watched the afternoon sunlight come slanting across the room. Malik tangled his fingers in my hair. He had stopped looking angry a while ago.

Now he only looked as though he wanted to throw himself off a cliff.

"You compensated well for your lost arm," I told him approvingly. "When we were fighting, I mean. You must have been practicing."

There was a moment of disbelieving silence. "_That's_ what you want to talk about?" Malik demanded.

It was a fair question, considering that I had just gone to bed with the man, but I merely shrugged. "What do you want to talk about, then?" I asked.

"I—" He stopped, drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes. His fingers tightened in my hair. "Forgive me," Malik said, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke.

"For what?"

"You know very well for what," Malik said, wry. "I was angry. And—you were beautiful. I'm sorry. I should not have."

I ran my fingers over the scar where his missing arm had been. He shuddered at the touch; the skin looked raw and angry, even now, and the bone jutted oddly where it ended. The wound itself had not been bad, I'd heard, but infection had set in—

"I'll forgive you," I told him, "if you tell me a story."

He snorted. "My conscience for the price of a tale," he said, sardonic, "like something out of the old fables. Fine, then. What do you want to hear?"

I paused a moment, as though considering.

"Tell me about Altair," I said.

"He is reckless and arrogant and a self-absorbed fool," Malik said. "And my brother is dead because of him, and I am crippled—what else is there to tell?"

Bitterness again. I turned my cheek into the pillow and sighed. "All right," I said. "I'll tell the story instead, since you are so reluctant. Shall I?"

—

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Malik al-Sayf, and he went to train as an Assassin in their mountaintop fortress at Masyaf.

There, he met another boy whose name was Altair. The two became friends. Altair was better at everything—the sword, the dagger, riding and climbing and pick pocketing—and Malik was jealous, but he admired his friend, too. Altair was perhaps a year older. Malik respected him for his skills in both body and mind; they trained together, and they fought together, and Malik must have learned a great many things from his childhood friend, even if he did feel overshadowed.

Then Altair grew up.

He became arrogant and thought himself above the Creed. Altair was Masyaf's best assassin, so he got away with many things that a lesser man might not have, and Malik warned his friend against being so prideful—but of course Altair did not listen. Perhaps they had an argument. But in any case, Malik grew bitter and resentful, and the two drifted apart; by the time they were both assigned to the mission at Jerusalem, they were no longer friends, but rivals—

—

"Stop," Malik said.

I stopped.

He raked his fingers through his hair, tiredly, and gave me a look. "How did you know?"

I shrugged. It hadn't been so difficult—we had all been at Masyaf together, years and years ago, and of course rumors and gossip made their way through the courier circuits; the rest was pure conjecture, but I had always been good at that. "I guessed," I said. "Was I wrong?"

"No," Malik said ruefully. The bitterness had faded by now, and he sounded only weary. "It was all true. Shall I tell you a secret, or do you know it already?"

"Tell me anyway."

"Jerusalem," said Malik, "was my fault, too."

Ah. That was a heavy secret indeed. "I had heard," I said carefully, "that Altair rushed ahead recklessly, and gave the Templars too much warning."

Malik shrugged.

"Altair was always arrogant," he said. "This mission was no different, except that the stakes were higher. He rushed ahead recklessly, and gave the Templars too much warning, and broke all the tenets of the Creed—and I should have stopped him when he went too far, but I did not."

"Why didn't you?"

He was quiet a moment, thinking. "I thought he knew what he was doing," Malik said at last. "He always did—or acted like it, anyway—and I believed him, and now my brother is dead."

"And you lost your arm, and you hate being rafik, and you hate being crippled, and you think Al Mualim sent you here out of pity."

Malik cast me another look. "I don't know why I bother to speak at all," he said dryly, "when you can do it for me."

"And you looked so skeptical, too, when you suggested that I seduce Talal's secrets from him." I sat up. My hair had long since come loose from its braid; the ribbon I had used to tie it had been lost somewhere in the courtyard. I looked around for another.

"Let's go downstairs," I said to Malik. "Do you have any food?"

—

We were halfway through an early dinner before he realized. Malik set down his piece of bread and suddenly looked outraged.

"Did you plan all of that?" he demanded. "Goading me into a fight, and then taking me to bed—"

"I'd actually thought of getting you drunk, instead," I admitted. "That was my first plan. But this worked, too."

"—so you could tell me about my childhood?"

I leaned back in my chair and regarded him steadily. "So I could decide what to do with you," I said.

"If that was meant to reassure me," said Malik, "it didn't work."

He had said it in good humor, but his fingers were curled tightly around his cup; there were too many secrets spilled out between us for him to pretend that they did not matter. Loss and regret and friendships betrayed—like something out of the old fables, indeed, and I touched the pendant in my pocket and wondered what these Pieces of Eden were. These lumps of silver seemed like such trifling things for the Templars and Assassins to go to war over—

Malik was still watching me.

"You're not useless here, you know," I said.

He raised his eyebrows. "What?"

"As Jerusalem rafik. I could reassign you, if you want—you could go to Damascus, or back to Masyaf, or ride the courier circuits—but you've never been useless. Al Mualim did not make you rafik because he was sorry for you and thought that you had forgotten how to fight."

"Then why—"

"I did not think you had forgotten how to fight, either," I said. "I don't think anyone has—even if you are out of practice—but I wanted to know why you were angry. So."

"So," Malik repeated, looking wary. "Now you know. What will you do with me?"

I spread my hands before me and shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "Would you like to go elsewhere? I don't think it'll help, Malik. You can't change the past, and you won't forget your guilt only because you've run a little further away."

"You think I should stay."

"I think you would be wasted on the courier circuits."

He drew in a deep breath and drained his cup. "Tell me," he said. "Did you do all this to make sure I would stay in Jerusalem?"

"Will you stay, then?"

"I'd feel guilty for leaving, now," Malik said, grimacing. "You're right. It wouldn't help. And—I owe you recompense, for the insult."

I could not resist teasing a little. "So bedding me was an insult?"

"I should not have done it out of anger," he said, "even if you were willing. But answer me, Isra. Did you do this so I would stay?"

He would have stayed anyway. Malik knew his orders well enough. I had done it because he had been unhappy beneath the weight of his silence; but of course I could not tell him that. "Yes," I said instead.

"I'll stay, then," he said, "since you have such a high opinion of my abilities."

It should have felt like a victory but didn't. I had broken into his heart and taken his secrets, and there was no glory in it at all—

Malik poured himself another cup of wine and drained that, too. "So this is what it's like to be seduced," he said, rueful. "I mean no offense, but you'll forgive me if I never wish to repeat the experience. Is this what you do to the Templars? Hammer at them until they crack before your will?"

I lifted my cup to him in a toast. "If it's any consolation," I said dryly, "none of them were half as handsome as you."

* * *

A/N: I can't believe I forgot to mention this! But bloodsmoothy over at deviantart has drawn fanart of Isra, so you should all go over and check it out (sorry about the lack of link, but ff deletes them all). It is very impressive because I don't think I've put in a physical description of Isra, like, ever. Don't worry, the next two chapters will be devoted entirely to descriptions of her violet eyes and shimmering auburn hair.


	26. Jerusalem: Creed and Conscience

A/N: So apparently reviews don't actually make me write faster, but thanks to everyone for reviewing anyway.

* * *

It was strange how quickly the world moved on without regard for anything.

I did have business to discuss, though Malik raised his eyebrows when I said so; Sarai, for one, had sent with me a list of requests as long as my arm. I had lost it somewhere in the courtyard. Malik went off to look for it.

"Arsenic," he said incredulously, waving the paper at me when he returned, "or realgar if I cannot get that; dried monkshood; two large glass bulbs—_this_ is her requisitions list?"

"Some of her distillation equipment broke in transport," I felt compelled to explain, though Malik continued to look skeptical. "Oh, and she needs a new mirror—"

"A mirror. Isra, you understand I must justify these expenses to Masyaf?"

"That's another thing," I said. "She wants to see the ledgers."

Malik frowned. "Why?"

"Missing payments," I said, shrugging. "I'm not too certain. But she thinks that some of our gold is being funneled away, because the profits on the last spice shipment from Damascus didn't add up properly."

"Spice shipments _never_ add up properly."

That's what I had told Sarai, but she had assured me that this was important. Malik sighed and promised that he would send them over as soon as he could. Then it was on to more mundane things—no, my things had not arrived yet from Damascus; yes, we knew where Talal's next shipment would go; no, none of our agents had anything significant to report—and troop movements after that, marking out the course of the Crusade—

Soon it was twilight, and then dusk, and we were lighting candles against the gathering gloom, and it was almost as though nothing at all had happened between us. There had been no time to think about it, so I did not.

Not then, anyway.

—

I did not know how Malik bore his guilt. Some men wept, and others prayed, and still others raged and shouted and denied it all; but I could not imagine him doing any of those things. For all the secrets I had stolen, there were still many things that I would likely never learn.

He should have stopped Altair.

But he had not realized it until afterwards—days and weeks later, after it was far too late—

In a month, would I be sorry for what I had done? It was a worrying question, and not only for its own sake: I had not known I possessed such a conscience. My will was Al Mualim's, and he would have praised me wholeheartedly for making Malik so much more tractable—so I should not have been thinking of regret at all.

The world went on, in any case, and did not give me time to dwell on Malik overmuch. The next few weeks were a relief from the usual chaos. The city guards cut down their patrols, and eventually even the rumormongers grew tired of speculating upon Abu'l Nuquod's death—and then news came that Salah al-Din had attacked the Crusader army at Arsuf, which handily diverted attention from the Assassins altogether. The city became abuzz with a different sort of speculation: whether Richard the Lionheart would take Jaffa, and whether a truce could be reached, and what we would do if the Crusaders came for Jerusalem—

But at least there were no more soldiers stalking the city streets for white-robed men with swords. It was a reprieve of a sort, even with the threat of siege looming overhead, and I was grateful for it while it lasted.

Not, of course, that it lasted for very long.

The peace ended abruptly one morning some two weeks later. I came into the bureau, and Malik looked up and said: "The Templars are after you."

And that was the end of that.

—

"The Templars are always after us," I said. "Anyway, Talal has still been keeping his men on me—"

Malik was frowning. "That is not what I am talking about," he told me sharply. "They are not seeking out Assassins as they usually do, Isra. They are looking for young women, about your age, who might have come from Acre in the past month or so—"

Sarai.

"Yes," Malik said. "It seems her hound has tracked her to Jerusalem. Do you know who it is?"

I shook my head. "The virtues of heaven," I said. "I've never heard of them, before Sarai mentioned it."

"Oh, wonderful," said Malik, and bent over his desk.

"What happened?"

"Women dying," he said grimly. "Two strangled and one with her neck broken—one I could have understood, perhaps a lover's quarrel, and the other could have fallen down the stairs—but three, in the space of little more than a week? So I pulled two men away from the madrasahs and sent them to check, and there is a newcomer amongst the Templars." He held out a slip of paper. "A description," he added. "Ask Sarai if she recognizes it."

I tucked it away. "When did this start?"

"Last week. Perhaps a little more. These are women from good families, not—well. Not otherwise."

Sarai had been followed. We had been taught, over and over again, to cover our tracks: she would have left a trail to Tyre or Damascus, and changed her schedule at least three times, and identities too—but still, it was not impossible that someone would think to search for her in Jerusalem. "How close is he?" I asked. "Do we need to move? Yusuf might go to the countryside, or traveling—"

Malik was shaking his head. "Too much attention," he said. "This man—this virtue, however he calls himself—he could have left those women alive. He is trying to frighten us into showing our hand, I think."

"And our other operations? The trade routes? The regent? Are they at risk? Should we put a stop to any of those?"

"That," Malik said dryly, "was what I was about to ask you. But first, there is the other pressing matter of your protection—"

I had been doing fine without a bodyguard for the past few weeks, and I said so.

"Yes," said Malik, "but something has come up—"

"Something more pressing than the fact that Sarai has a murderer on her tail?" I asked.

"_Yes_," said Malik. "Isra, listen—"

But I had stopped listening, because that was when Altair walked in.

—

It was not one of my finer moments when I picked up a map and flung it at his head. Altair looked surprised more than anything else; he dodged the scroll easily, and then stared at me as though _I _were the one out of place in this scene.

"You!" I said, furious. "You're supposed to be in Masyaf! What are you doing here?"

Altair was still staring. "You threw a map at me," he said.

"Al Mualim was supposed to reassign you! You should be going to Acre right now! Or Cyprus!"

"He thought that you might need—"

"I certainly don't need _you_," I snapped. And then, clearly because I had not been undignified enough today, I called him an ass in three different languages and went stomping out into the courtyard, where I threw myself onto the bench and sulked.

I should have gone back inside and demanded an explanation. I should have asked Malik how on earth this Templar had discovered Sarai. I should have, at the very least, ordered Altair to pack and depart the city at once. I didn't do any of these things.

I sat there, instead, and stared at the sky, and wondered why I cared at all. There are foolish Assassins just as there are foolish Templars and foolish men, and Altair was only another fool that I disliked; I should not have given him so much thought. Al Mualim would certainly not have approved.

First Malik, and now Altair. I dropped my head into my hands and sighed. Clearly I was losing my mind.

From beyond the confines of my misery, I dimly heard the sound of the door opening.

Then: footsteps across the courtyard, and a shadow came looming over me like the harbinger of doom.

"Isra," Altair said.

"Go away."

Altair sat down next to me instead, which was the exact opposite of _go away_, and he pushed back his hood so that the sunlight came glittering into his eyes. "You're angry," he said.

I did not even bother pointing out the obviousness of his remark. "What are you doing here?" I demanded again. "You were supposed to get a reassignment."

"I asked Al Mualim to send me back."

I stared.

"_Why_?" I managed finally. "You could have been rid of me; you could be doing _anything_ else right now, almost anything you want—"

Altair was watching me, expressionless. "And have you given a great deal of thought to what I want?"

"Of course I have," I snapped at him. "It was the fastest way to get rid of you."

"And you?" he asked. "What do you want?"

I didn't know, and I didn't particularly care to consider it at the moment with Altair brooding over me like a predatory hawk. "Nothing you could give me," I said bitterly, slumping back down. It would be at least a week before I could be rid of him again, and perhaps I could not be rid of him at all; I still needed an assassin to help me in my plan for Talal—

"I came back to so I could speak with you."

"Then stop dithering and get on with it."

He glanced away at that. "There are three laws that Assassins must obey," Altair said, quietly. "First: ensure peace in all things; second: stay unseen; and third: never compromise the Brotherhood, for the actions of one must not bring harm to all. These are the tenets of the Creed, and the terms of your duty. I should not have presumed otherwise."

There was a long, long moment of silence between us, hanging like a sword.

"…so," I said at last, startled out of my anger, "you came all the way to Jerusalem to tell me this?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I—" He broke off and shrugged. "I could not leave things as they were."

Altair, with a conscience. I ran my fingers through my hair and then had to spend a moment untangling my braid; in my distraction, I had forgotten to untie it first. "It's strange," I told him, "to imagine you caring about such things."

It was strange to imagine him caring about anything at all, but I did not say that out loud.

"It compromised the Brotherhood," Altair said. "You sent me to Masyaf, and there was no one else to act as your guard."

The Brotherhood. Of course. "And does it compromise the Brotherhood for you to be feuding with Malik?"

"We are not feuding."

"You snipe at each other every chance you get."

For that, he had no answer. I sighed. "Never mind," I said. "I can't imagine you'd ever unbend enough to actually explain yourself properly, anyway."

"It is not as easy as you might think," Altair said, scowling. I snorted. Of course it wasn't easy; nothing ever was.

"Is there anything else you'd like to share, then?" I asked. "Or have you reached your limit for the day?"

"Nothing else," he said, after a moment.

"Of course not," I muttered, and went back inside to speak with Malik.

—

"So," Malik said ruefully, when I came back to the shopfront, "it seems that Altair has returned from his errand a little early."

"When did he get here?"

"Last night. I knew you were coming, so I sent him out to check on Talal before you arrived—but you see how well that worked."

"You should've mentioned him _first_," I said, scowling, "so I might have had some warning."

"Somehow," Malik said, "I imagined that the presence of a murderous Templar from Acre was more important, but I can see how that was a mistake."

I had to laugh at that, despite my mood.

"I am sorry," Malik added, more seriously. "I did not think—well. I had not expected Al Mualim would send him back. If you want to be rid of him—and I can't blame you for that—"

"No," I said. "Not yet, anyway. He's here now, so we might as well make use of him."

"What will you do?"

I sighed. "He can take me with him when he goes to meet our informants tomorrow," I said. Likely he would still stare them into stammering silences, but there was no help for that. "We'll see if he can hold his tongue or not; I hope he manages it."

Malik made a disbelieving sound. "And if not?"

"And if not," I said, "Sarai has three letters for Damascus and one for Masyaf; he can spend another week playing courier, at the worst."

—

Altair, with a conscience.

I had never thought of him as possessing one—but he was loyal to the Assassins, above all else, so surely Jerusalem weighed on him as much as it did on anyone. And he had been friends with Malik, years and years ago—

They had never spoken of it. At least, not to each other.

The thought that Altair was terrible at talking to people did not escape me. I wondered if he had noticed it yet.

* * *

A/N: Too tired to make historical notes. Blah. I wish real life didn't exist.

Quick poll: if I wrote an original fic (like, not fanfic) and posted it over on fictionpress, would any of you be interested in reading it? I have an account there but, well, you know. It's fictionpress.


	27. Jerusalem: The Lower Markets

A/N: The plot has decided to crawl under the bed and hide from me.

* * *

"Isra, can we go shopping?"

I peered at Sarai from over the top of my book. "We probably shouldn't," I said, "what with there being a murderous Templar looking for you and all. Why? Is there something you wanted? I can ask Malik to buy it for you—"

"No," she said, sighing, and set down her quill. "No, I don't need anything."

"What's wrong?"

"I think," Sarai said, "I might be going mad. One of our caravans carried a weapons shipment out of Damascus, and we sold it for gold in Jerusalem, and paid off the caravan-master and the city guards and bought grain with the rest—but it was a wagon less than what we bought this time last year, and I _know_ that there has been more call for weapons from Salah al-Din's armies—"

"The city guards, perhaps?" I suggested. But Sarai was already shaking her head.

"If they were demanding more in bribes, I'm sure Malik would have told us," she said. "And this isn't all. Cinnamon through Baghdad bought for twelve and a half dirhams, and sold for fourteen; but we're missing a good three or four hundred dirhams by volume. Saffron bought and sold, but none of the prices look right. And the expenses—for two caravan-masters taking the same route, two weeks apart, one might charge half as much again as the other—and then the next month, we'll pay them both the same amount again—"

I set down my book. Sarai was frowning down at her desk now, her mouth drawn tight with thought. "Are we losing money?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Well—yes, I suppose we are—but nothing remarkable, nothing that wouldn't happen if the merchants decided to take a little here and there. But it's not just one merchant, Isra, it's all of them."

"So we're dealing with greedy merchants, then?"

"No," Sarai said ruefully. "I'm not explaining this well, am I? It's as though—a merchant will decide to be greedy this month, when before he has been scrupulously honest, and then next month two other men will skim a little from their shipments, and the first one will go back to honesty again. It's a plague of greed that comes and goes and comes at will. It makes no sense. Men do not behave like this. Do they?"

"Most of them are not so inconsistent," I admitted.

She sighed. "And I wrote to Shadha and Al Mualim," Sarai continued, "but you know we won't hear from Cairo for a month of more, and if I'm wrong about all this, then I'm afraid I'll have bothered Al Mualim for nothing."

Al Mualim would be glad to hear of it, even if it was nothing, and Sarai looked a little more cheerful when I assured her in this regard.

"But, well," she said, and sighed again. "I wanted to go to the markets, and check some of these prices for myself."

And Sarai looked so forlorn that of course I had to offer to go for her.

So that was how I wound up spending the next two days in Altair's company.

—

Of course it should not taken two days. It should have been half a morning's excursion at most, but fate intervened.

In hindsight, I should have known that everything would go wrong the moment we left the bureau.

"_Don't_ complain," I told Altair; he did nothing _but _complain as we went into Jerusalem.

"This is foolish," he said, stalking after me through the dusty streets. "You should not be here—the Templars are searching for you, and Talal might call for you at any moment, or has that slipped your mind?"

"No, it hasn't," I snapped.

I could feel his scowl on my back. "Then why are you doing this?"

"Because it's important."

"I fail to see how."

"Of course you would," I muttered. "I doubt you would find anything important if it didn't involve stabbing someone in the neck."

"That," Altair said coldly, "is untrue."

I didn't bother arguing. We walked in cold, stony silence and looked at anything but each other. Around us the city was bustling with wagons bringing in the harvest; it was festival time, and almost everyone was cheerful except for me and Altair, and I ruefully considered the fact that the Templars might find us by virtue of our frowns alone. But then, it might have killed Altair to smile. I had never seen him do so, after all.

I wondered, briefly, what he might look like if he were ever happy.

—

Jerusalem was a holy city, but for all the scriptures it housed its markets were no less grand than the ones I had seen in Damascus: bright stalls everywhere, and criers calling out over the din of the crowd, and wary guards on the street corners standing watch for thieves. I had braided my hair but left it uncovered. With the silver charm against my throat, I was only another unremarkable face—an errand-girl, perhaps, or a stall-keeper's daughter—not even a Templar would recognize me, even if they discovered Altair. None of the merchants cast me a second glance.

So really, Altair should not have worried so about my being caught; he should have worried more for himself. I was not carrying four different kinds of knives and glowering at the world as though I meant to do it harm. I haggled over the price of vegetables and cooking pots, like any other woman out shopping for her household—so I, at least, might have belonged there.

Altair did not even make an effort. He stood nearby and made everyone nervous with his scowl.

"Stop that," I told him, after the third or fourth time that a merchant cast him a wary glance and agreed to my price without further argument. "I thought you had been trained in discretion and stealth?"

"I'm guarding you," he retorted.

I sighed and hefted my basket. It was growing heavy: a head of cabbage; two loaves of bread; fruit fresh from the summer harvest and a copper plate that had caught my eye. Malik would grumble about the expenses, but he would indulge me anyway. "You're attracting attention," I said to Altair, as we pushed our way through the morning crowd. "No one would be watching us if you would just relax a little."

"And if I relaxed a little," he told me coolly, "that soldier by the fruit stall could have seized you before you even noticed him move."

There were no words for how utterly unlikely that was. I merely stared, and Altair reached back to pull me around a cart that had unexpectedly stopped in the middle of the market square; his fingers were rough against my wrist, the gauntlet bumping against my arm as we moved, and in a moment we were free of the crowd as he moved us away. The sudden rush of quiet only made our silence more disconcerting.

"Why would he have seized me?" I asked. "There was no reason for him to—he certainly wouldn't have recognized me—"

Altair was not listening. He was scanning the crowd, frowning as he did so, and off in the distance there might have been something like a commotion—

"Guards," Altair said absently, "never needed a reason." And: "Stay here."

"What—"

But he was gone, the white of his robes nothing more than a flash of color amongst the bustling market. I let out a frustrated breath. Only a moment ago he had been warning me of the necessity of vigilance, and now he was wandering off?

I was going to put him on courier duty for the next _year_. Courier duty straight through the _desert_.

—

There was no way for me to follow him through the crowd. I ducked into a deserted street and left my basket abandoned on a doorstep. Then I climbed up to the rooftops and followed him from there; fortunately, the buildings in the market district had built close enough that I could jump the gaps between them without any difficulty.

And it wasn't hard to track Altair, either, once I had picked him out from amongst the throng. He went forward almost to the fruit-seller's stall, past the guard that he had speculated might kidnap me, and then abruptly turned left and headed down a narrow alleyway—

Oh.

An empty basket lying half-trampled in a corner, and flowers spilled out across the dirty cobblestones; guardsmen shouting accusations; a girl crying out that she was not a thief—

And Altair, grim and unforgiving, moving toward the scene.

This was not going to end well.

I crept back from the rooftop's edge. "Let her go," I heard him say, distantly; and of course they would not, and of course Altair was too stubborn to simply walk away. There was a ladder nearby. I eyed it, speculative: it would probably bring me down somewhere behind the guards.

Of course, Altair would be furious with me for interrupting.

But the whole mess would be his fault anyway, so I didn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt as I climbed back down to street level. "Who the hell are you?" one of the guards was saying; in the next moment, as my feet touched the ground, Altair had struck him across the jaw and was whirling to face another as the first shouted in surprise.

There were only three of them, which was good. I dashed in, seized the girl by the collar, and hauled her out of the fray. Her face was streaked with tears.

"I didn't take anything," she told me, clinging to my hand.

"It's really a little too late to argue the point," I said dryly. The brawl was progressing at a rapid pace. Ah—Altair was beautiful when he fought, all flowing grace and ruthlessness; in Masyaf, Rasha had taught me to appreciate such things. The very first time I had seen Altair, he had been in the sparring ring—

One of the guards was reaching for his sword.

"Stay here," I said to the girl.

The man was facing away from me, so I took him entirely by surprise when I swept his legs out from beneath him; he went tumbling down, his sword clattering to the cobblestones amidst the spilled flowers, and the look of shock on his face was almost comical. I snatched up the blade before he could reach for it. It was heavier than I had expected—I had never held a sword, before—and the balance of it was strange in my hands, but I could lift it with no trouble, and the man swallowed and scrambled backwards.

Altair seized him, lifted him up, and flung him against the wall. He crumpled.

Another guard was lying moaning on the ground; the third broke and ran. Altair turned to me, scowling.

"Drop that before you cut yourself," he ordered brusquely. And, to the girl, "What were you doing?"

"Nothing!" she cried. "They stopped me as I was walking by, and I offered them my flowers, and they called me a thief and took me here—"

I could believe her. She was very young, and very pretty, with curling dark hair and gray-green eyes; I thought, for a moment, that she looked familiar. She looked—

"Avoid them next time," Altair was saying. "Most of Jerusalem's guards are corrupt. Do you have anywhere to go?"

She nodded, quick and anxious. "Miraj—my brother—he has a stall by the gate. He sells vegetables."

"Can you get there yourself?"

"Yes, I—I think so."

"Then go," Altair said, glancing behind him at the unconscious guards and the marketplace beyond. "More men will be here soon. I'll keep them away from you."

But she did not go.

She came up close to him, instead, and touched his sleeve, and said, very hesitantly: "I remember you. You bought a flower from me once—blooddrops, for your lady—"

Ah. The flower-girl. I remembered her, too.

"—and now you have saved my life," she finished. "Both of you," she added, her eyes darting to me for a moment. "Thank you. I will not forget this."

I half-expected Altair to snap at her—I could hear a commotion out beyond the crowd, doubtless the third guard shouting for backup—but he did not.

"It was no trouble," he told her instead: so graciously, as though it were true.

I stared.

The girl ran off.

"Come on," Altair said to me, all brusqueness and impatience again, and he grabbed my arm and headed for the rooftops.

* * *

A/N: So I've really been trying to combine gameplay and story in ways that make sense. Sometimes it is pretty hard.

Notes: Did you guys know that Ramadan moves around every year? The Islamic calendar is based on a 12 lunar month system, and since a full (solar) year is a little longer than 12 lunar months, the calendar keeps slipping around. Ramadan begins something like eleven days earlier every year (or a little less than eleven days), giving a cycle of approximately 34 years for Ramadan to cycle around again. In 2010 it began on August 11, so in 1192 it would start sometime mid-March. Give or take a month. (Rounding errors accumulate over several centuries.)

Al-Isra is a sura in the Koran that describes how, in one night, Mohammed went to Jerusalem and then to Heaven to hang out with cool guys like Moses and Jesus. The entire journey is called the Isra and Mi'raj. There is a holiday associated with this day that is about one (lunar) month before Ramadan—so early April of 1193. Ish. Probably.

Switching between calendars gives me a headache. The Chinese have a hybrid lunar-solar one for harvests and festivals and such that makes even less sense.

Also, no complaints about how Isra shouldn't be able to lift a sword! They were not that heavy—four pounds, max, and the guards probably weren't even carrying one of the really long ones.


	28. Jerusalem: ibn la Ahad

A/N: This is the Official Notice of Divergence From Canon here, guys. Repeat: non-canon stuff ahead. Hopefully you won't be able to tell if you a) have only played AC1 and b) didn't obsessively read all the codex pages/wikis/developer blogs like I did. Also: lots of dialogue in this chapter. Be warned.

* * *

We hid in a rooftop garden. Or at least: I hid in a rooftop garden, and Altair led the guards on a merry chase through Jerusalem to take their attention away from the flower-girl as she fled. It was a streak of chivalry that I never expected from Altair; I had thought he hated everyone. Perhaps he only hated me.

What would he have done, if I had been the one taken by guardsmen?

But of course that was not a fair question to ask: Altair would have to save me anyway; it was his duty, handed down from Al Mualim, and there would be no way to disentangle it from inclination. Although he certainly wouldn't have been so gracious about it afterwards—

Out across the city, the alarm bells began to ring.

—

Altair came tumbling into the garden some ten minutes later, his robes askew and blood dripping from his cheek. "What did you do?" I demanded, jumping out of his way. "You were only supposed to lead them away from the eastern gate, not _put the city on high alert_—"

"The guards are jumpy," Altair said curtly. And, "We'll have to stay here until they give up the search."

"Oh, yes, let's wait in here until someone stumbles upon us and raises the alarm again," I snapped. This wasn't a safehouse, or even an abandoned rooftop; there were pots of flowers in neat rows on the shelves, blooming prettily with not a weed in sight, and the linen drapes that kept out the worst of the sun were all spotlessly clean. "What will you do when someone comes to water the plants? Tie her up and explain to her how absolutely vital it is to our cause that she not scream?"

"The door is locked. It's midday. No one is coming up here." He swiped at his cheek, looking irritated. Blood stained his sleeve.

"What happened to you?"

"Archers."

Wonderful. So he head nearly been shot to death, on top of everything else. I sighed and tossed him a handkerchief; Sarai had insisted I bring one, since I was not pretending to be a boy today. "There's water in the can over there," I said, nodding toward it. "You should probably wash that cut, to get the dust out."

He knelt over it and splashed water across his face. The alarm was still ringing, distantly; I wished that it would stop.

"Why did you do it?" I asked.

Altair glanced up, wary, the damp cloth pressed against his cheek and his shoulders tense. "What?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean," I told him. "Why did you do it? There was no need to interfere. You didn't know her, and it put the both of us in danger—"

"I did not think they would raise the city alarm."

"And if you had?" I asked. "Would you have done the same?"

He looked away.

I waited. "What would you have had me do?" he demanded finally, his voice harsher than I had expected. "Leave her there as a plaything for the guards? You know what they would have done to her."

"Then why didn't you kill them?" Because he hadn't. Altair had used his fists, when he could have merely rained death on them from above.

"They might have deserved to die," Altair said, "but she did not need to see it."

"Her. A stranger. A girl you bought flowers from once, and now you would risk your life for her sake?"

Altair leaned back against the wall to my right, his shoulder almost brushing mine in the cramped corner of the garden. His lips were pressed together in a thin, angry line. "It is already done," he told me, so bitterly that I wondered at his tone. "Make your complaint to Masyaf as you will, but I cannot change the past, no matter what orders you give me."

Of course he would argue. I had asked him a question, and instead of answering it he had argued and argued and argued; Altair was a stubborn fool, and the bells would not stop ringing, and my head hurt and I was _hungry_. The silver pendant tangled against my shirt. I tugged it off, impatient, and felt the warmth of the charm fade away from my skin—

I was tired of arguing with him.

"It wasn't an accusation," I said wearily. "Or censure, or any sort of reprimand; I am not going to report you to Al Mualim." And the Master would not have minded, anyway, if we had stopped to help a civilian. "It was only a question, Altair."

Silence between us, and I was growing tired of these, too: long stretches when nothing was spoken and I did not know what his expression meant, and I did not know how I might find out—

"It was an injustice," Altair said, his voice quiet.

I blinked at him. I had not expected an answer—not now, anyway, and certainly not an answer like _that_. "Really?" I asked after a moment, when it became clear that he had nothing more to add. "Is that all?"

"It was an injustice," he said, "and I could not see it followed through. Why did you ask, if not for a reprimand?"

For knowledge, so that I might have power from it; for truth, so that I might not be deceived; for understanding, so that I might be wise. Why else would anyone ask anything? Al Mualim had taught me this, years and years ago; one of the earliest lessons I had ever learned.

"Because," I said, "I wanted to know. Is that not enough?"

He snorted. Water was dripping down his chin; he wiped it away with the edge of the handkerchief.

"You wanted to know," Altair repeated. "From you? Yes, I could believe it. It is not your sincerity that I doubt."

—

I understood.

It was a sudden thing—not a puzzle to be worked out over weeks and days, but a great rush like wind or sky: revelation in its purest form, and it took me by surprise. I had not thought it would be so easy.

But it was, and the suddenness of it made me careless.

There could have been half a dozen ways to broach the subject tactfully. I did not choose any of them.

"Why are you afraid of me?" I blurted out instead.

—

From Altair: a tense, incredulous silence.

The silver chain was tangled between my fingers. I pulled it tight enough to wince at the pain; no, this was not a dream, and yes, I had really said that out loud, and of course the world would not be so obliging as to open a pit beneath me that might swallow me whole. This was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

"I didn't mean to say that," I said. And, "I was just startled, because I didn't think—I mean, I don't mean to imply anything about—well, I hadn't expected—"

I was babbling, I realized with horror, and stopped talking at once.

For two years I had held my tongue through Tamir's indifference and Jubair's misguided passion, but all my studied composure had come undone in the face of Altair's silence. I stared at the floor. The patterns of dust and straw and slanting sunlight held no answers for me; even worse, they steadfastly refused to provide any sort of distraction from the silence. "Are you going to say anything?"

"What should I say?" Altair demanded. "That I should trust you with all the secrets of the Order, when you would go to bed with any Templar that asked?"

"That's not—"

"I _know_ it isn't true." He lifted the handkerchief from his cheek and crumpled it in his lap; the cloth was all bloody now, and I didn't think I wanted it back.

But he didn't offer it. He only shoved it into his pocket with more force than necessary, and scowled out at the world.

"I know," Altair said, more quietly, "that you serve Masyaf. Al Mualim himself has assured me that this is so. But I cannot _believe_ it when you would trade your loyalty between so many men as though it were a sack of grain."

"You're mistaking my virtue with my loyalty," I said to the floor. From beside me, Altair let out a sigh.

"I know," he said again. And, unspoken: _but aren't they the same?_

I risked a glance. Altair was scowling off into the distance, looking as though he dearly wanted to hit something. "I won't hurt you," I offered. Well, that wasn't precisely true—I _would_, if Altair betrayed Masyaf or tried to kill me—but I could not imagine him doing so. "I'm good at keeping secrets. Not," I added hastily, "that I know any about _you_ specifically, but if I did—"

"I know."

He kept saying that. "Do you believe it?"

"Should I?" he asked. "You would seduce a Templar and betray him to us. You would lie with a man, and condemn him to death the very next day, and if—"

"Would you prefer that I loved him?" I demanded. "Would you prefer that I had cared for Tamir, and stopped you from killing him, and given the Templars all the weapons they needed to win this damned Crusade and their entire war upon the world—"

"And why should I trust _any_ of your allegiances, when you care for no one and would abandon anything?"

_Oh_—it should not have hurt, but it did, and I should not have cared what Altair thought of me but my heart was pounding anyway; he was a Master Assassin and I was a Wildflower, the both of us two of the best agents that Al Mualim had ever trained, and here we were exchanging barbs like schoolchildren. "Yes," I said sardonically, "you don't trust my allegiances, and you think I have no loyalty and no virtue—so _of course_ the logical thing to do was ask that Al Mualim send you back to Jerusalem so you could spend even more time with someone you hate—"

"I _don't hate you_," Altair snapped.

"You've certainly done a remarkable job of hiding it."

He scowled in frustration—as though _I _were the one being unreasonable here. "Al Mualim trusts you," he said, "and I would understand why. Perhaps you were taught otherwise, Isra, but beyond Masyaf, adultery is the worst sign of faithlessness."

In a woman, anyway. Men could do as they pleased, with so little consequence—

But such an argument would be lost on Altair.

"If you wanted to know why Al Mualim trusts me," I said instead, "then you should have asked him; _I_ certainly do not profess to speak for the Master."

"Will you speak for yourself, then?"

As though I owned him any sort of explanation. As though it were my duty to justify myself, when I did not answer to him at all; as though I had done anything _wrong_—

"Please," he said.

He should not have cared either, but he did. I wound the pendant's chain through my fingers and wondered at the symmetry.

"One question," I told him. "I will answer that much."

—

The sun beat down onto the little garden. Beneath the linen drapes, bright flowers stirred in a faint breeze: pots of jasmine, and delicate roses half again as small as my palm, and lavender spilling out their scent into the air. I touched a leaf and watched it tremble beneath my fingers.

Beside me, Altair stretched out his legs as far as he could in the cramped quarters. The crimson sash fluttered as he moved.

"Why do you do it?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Any of it," Altair said, his eyes flickering to my face and away again. "Give yourself to these—these men. Let them hurt you. And for what? Information? When you could have sent a spy or bribed a servant—"

"We can't always send a spy," I pointed out.

"But we could have, with Talal."

I shrugged. "It's a weapon," I said. "A weapon like any other—and not so dangerous that I would forgo its convenience, if there was the slightest need. If you were sent to kill a man, and you came upon him without your hidden blade, then you would use your sword; if you did not have that, you would use a dagger; if you were unarmed, you would break his neck with your bare hands, or push him off a roof. You would not say: 'oh, I should wait until I have something better,' and risk losing the opportunity altogether."

"So it's only a weapon, then?" he asked. "As simple as that?"

"That's two more questions," I said dryly.

"Name your price."

He was serious. I peered at him curiously. "Why is this so important?"

"Shouldn't it be?" His eyes were dark. "If you should bear a child from this—"

"I won't."

Altair snorted at that. "I don't question that you've learned your art," he said, "but if you should slip even once—"

"No," I said. "I mean, I can't. Al Mualim made sure of it."

"Oh," said Altair, looking startled. I glanced away.

A greater destiny than that of a wife or a mother, Shadha had promised. A destiny that would change the face of the world—

I wasn't sorry. And Altair, who couldn't decide now whether he ought to pity me or not: I did not need his pity. I had always had greater ambitions.

"Is this what you came back to learn?" I asked. "I suppose that you want to hear that I wouldn't do this otherwise—that I wouldn't risk bringing a child into this world, if I didn't truly want him—but I don't know. I never even considered it, after what Al Mualim did."

"I—" He stopped, drew in a breath, let it out again in a sigh. "Yes," Altair said. And: "There was something I wanted to tell you."

"You don't have to."

"I owe you some explanation—"

"If this is about your parentage," I said, "and how you came to serve Al Mualim, and why you despise courtesans: you don't have to tell me, because I already know."

—

Altair ibn la-Ahad. Altair, son of none.

It wasn't such a secret, that he was some assassin's unacknowledged bastard: pieces of rumors, here and there, and the letters of his name, and all his disdain for the Garden—the story was clear enough. I had never thought of it overmuch.

I hadn't thought it was _important_.

He was an assassin, after all, and his parentage mattered little in the face of his training, especially when Al Mualim went about collecting strays left and right from all across the countryside. There were orphans and illegitimate sons and unwanted girl-children in Masyaf aplenty—who cared, then, where Altair had come from? Al Mualim did not; I did not; the other assassins certainly did not.

But Altair cared—more than he should, more than he wanted to, beyond all practicality or reason—

I supposed that I should have suspected it earlier. But my father had sold me to Masyaf for half a year's wages; it had never occurred to me that someone else might find such an exchange objectionable.

—

"I see," Altair said, after staring at me for a moment. I tipped my head back and sighed, and closed my eyes against the slanting sunlight.

"Any other moral lapses you'd like to accuse me of?" I asked. "Faithlessness and adultery and lust—what else should I add to the list? Cowardice? Cruelty?"

"You aren't a coward." And: "You shouldn't do this. It isn't—it can't be—something that Al Mualim _demands_ of you, there are other ways—"

I opened my eyes and looked at him, and the rest of his words died on his lips unspoken.

"You cut off your finger so that you might make use of the hidden blade," I said to Altair. "It wasn't something Al Mualim demanded, but you did it anyway. Is this so different?"

Silence between us—true silence, now, and it took me a moment to realize that the bells had stopped ringing. Altair was on his feet at once. He lifted the linen drapes and glanced out into the street, checking for guards; the tip of his scabbard brushed against my cheek.

"What is it to you, anyway?" I asked him. "Al Mualim has vouched for me, and that should be enough for any assassin—why do you care, then, what I do or not?"

Altair glanced at me.

"I don't know," he said, honest and wary, and let the curtain drop. And, quieter: "I don't want to see you hurt."

I found myself speechless.

He pulled me to my feet. "The street is clear," Altair told me. "Malik will have closed up the bureau, but there's a safe house nearby. We can stay there for the night."

I was still speechless.

Altair didn't seem to notice. He swung his legs over the edge of the garden wall and vanished; it took me a moment to remember that I should be following him.

We went out into Jerusalem together, beneath the midday sun, and it was a long while before I could think of anything to say.

* * *

A/N: Sorry this took me so long, but figuring out all the interactions was quite the headache. I like to think that I've _expanded_ on Altair's character, since he doesn't seem to have much of one in the game, but apologies anyway if he seems ooc here (because oh god this took me like four weeks and I never want to see this chapter again).


	29. Jerusalem: Haven Lost

A/N: Brotherhood is out in five days! I am so excited. :D

* * *

The safe house was small and cramped and dusty: a walled-up cellar that people had forgotten, with cobwebs in a corner and a handful of silver tucked away beneath the thin pallet; there wasn't any food, which was a pity, because I was _starving_. Altair settled against a wall and went to work sharpening his knives. I curled up on the pallet and tried to sleep.

The thing I hated most about my service was how much _waiting_ there always was.

In the evening I woke to find that Altair had found some food somewhere. We ate, and then it was my turn to stand guard through the first part of the night—even if Altair did give me a skeptical look, as though he didn't expect that I could stay awake that long—and out across Jerusalem, the bells tolled again, ringing out the lonely hours until morning came.

—

Altair was a restless sleeper, tossing fitfully from nightmares or unpleasant thoughts or a guilty conscience, and he startled awake easily enough when I prodded his shoulder. "Time?" he asked quietly, sitting up.

"An hour past midnight. Maybe more."

"You could've woken me earlier."

"Oh, yes," I said sardonically, "because there were so many other things that I needed to be doing. When will the bureau be open?"

"Daybreak."

Because he had seen a girl in trouble, and it would have been an injustice not to save her. I stifled a sigh. "You should rest," Altair said, shifting a little in the darkness.

"I'm not tired." Which was a lie, because I was, but I did not want to sleep again in this musty darkness with Altair so close by. And: "Why didn't you take me to Yusuf's house?"

A pause. "I didn't think of it," he admitted. "It's—ingrained in us, to go to ground when the city alarms are called."

So I could have been at home all this while, instead of sitting here. I didn't groan, even though I wanted to; my own fault, for having assumed that Altair had known what he was doing and thought it through, but still, I was annoyed—and it wasn't a deadly mistake, but surely Sarai would be worried—

"I'm sorry," Altair said.

"If you feel the need to apologize, then do so to Malik," I said, too tired and irritated to be tactful. "It wasn't _my_ brother who died from your lack of consideration."

There was nothing he could say to that. My turn, now, to offer apologies: "I'm sorry. It wasn't my place."

"Sleep," he told me, and I closed my eyes and tried.

—

Sarai was waiting for me when I finally returned to Yusuf's house, and she hugged me the moment I came in through the window. "I was so _worried_," she said, stepping back to peer at me; she looked tired, as though she had been up for much of the night. "Where were you yesterday? The city bells rang, and Yusuf told me that the guards had caught some girl by the eastern gates—"

"My fault," I said ruefully. "I should have kept a closer eye on Altair."

"What happened?"

I tugged off my pendant and told her a considerably shortened version of the story. Sarai was sighing by the end of it. "I thought you'd been captured," she told me. "I was ready to go out and find you myself, if the bureau didn't send a message by noon today—"

Rasha would have gone rushing out the moment she'd heard the bells. "I'm fine," I said to Sarai. "No one recognized me, anyway. This won't get back to Talal, or whoever the Grand Master was."

"I wish these things didn't happen," Sarai said fretfully. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to go—Yusuf asked why you weren't at dinner, and I had to tell him that you were sick. And then the maid kept trying to come in to clean, and I had to keep her out, and the cook sent up a plate for you and I had to eat dinner _again _or else she'd be suspicious, too."

"I'm starving," I said, wistful. The bread last night had been mostly stale. Sarai patted my hand sympathetically.

"Well, I'm going back to bed," she decided. "There should be food downstairs, if you don't want to wait for breakfast, though you should probably change before anyone else sees you in _that_."

—

I did change, and then I managed to get to the kitchen without waking up the maid, and there was even some soup left over from last night. So of course the moment I sat down to eat would be the moment that Talal's thugs came to drag me off for an interview with the slaver; they woke the household with their shouts, and nearly broke down the front door with their banging. Perhaps I should have felt grateful that Talal hadn't sent for me last night, or even an hour earlier—but alas, I was too hungry to be anything but irritated.

It must have shown, too, because Talal was particularly unpleasant when I was brought before him. We were in an empty warehouse this time, and I had been dragged along too quickly to take much notice of it; the guards forced me to my knees before the slaver, and he stalked forward and dragged me up again, his eyes bloodshot and furious. His fine clothes were rumpled, his hair was in disarray—

Apparently he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, either.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you this very moment," Talal snarled.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I cried, struggling against his grip. "Let me go, you're hurting me—"

He tightened his hold. "Three weeks," he told me. "Three weeks, and not a word from you, and yesterday an _assassin _was caught in the marketplace—tell me, why should I bother with you at all, when you have been of so little use?"

"I didn't know! I was ill yesterday, I only heard the bells—"

Talal shook me. I stuttered into silence. "Enough," he told me sharply. "I've learned more from the captive in an hour than I've learned from _you_ in a month."

"Captive?" I blurted out.

He snarled again and pushed me away. I went tumbling to the floor, banged my elbow on someone's boot, and glanced up again in time to see Talal pacing. He was frightened.

He had not slept all night; he was frightened; there was a captive who had given him news—

Malik would not have left the bureau. But perhaps a novice, somewhere, who had ventured out at the sound of the bells, too young to realize the danger—

"A woman," Talal told me, and there had been time to linger on relief I would have been suddenly dizzy with it; "She was with the Assassins. The guards caught her again as she was trying to escape. Who is she?"

I considered my answer.

A woman, who had been caught, who was with the Assassins but not Sarai—and not Rasha, either, who was still tracking the armies across the desert—and certainly not me, because I was kneeling _here_ before this furious Templar; a woman, and they had known to capture and question her, and there was a shadow who had followed us from Acre—

"I had heard," I offered timidly, "that the Assassins employed a woman to aid them, by—by providing distraction—and she has since disappeared—"

"No," Talal muttered, mostly to himself. "No, he said it wasn't her." And, turning to me again: "Tell me why I should not give you over to my guards, for all the use you have been to me."

"Because," I said, trembling, "because I will find out more for you, I'll follow the merchant when he next goes to meet with the Assassins—"

"_Why_," Talal said coldly, "have you not done this before?"

"I didn't know you wanted me to!" I cried. "But I will do this, I swear, if you promise not to hurt me and bring me home!"

He came up to me, very close, and there were smudges of dust on his cheek and his braids were coming undone; oh, he was _frightened_, and if I could find out why—

"Tell me what the Assassins are planning," he told me, "and I will send you back to Damascus on the next caravan out. But you have a week before I decide you are not worth my time."

I trembled, because Talal was expecting it. He swept his arm out towards his guards.

"Take her away," he ordered.

And they did.

—

So I returned to Yusuf's house for the second time that day, and hurried past the disapproving maid, and made my way upstairs where Sarai was waiting for me—again.

She didn't hug me this time. Instead she merely glanced up from her desk, frowning and distracted, and said: "Malik sent a messenger while you were gone."

I shut the door behind me. "What's wrong?"

"I—" Sarai weaved her fingers through the long length of her hair, restless and troubled. "A courier arrived this morning. From Masyaf." She nodded towards the desk, and there was a letter there: a blooddrop drawn in ink across the front, and tucked into the parchment was a snow-white feather— "Al Mualim wants Talal dead."

And this time _I_ would have the honor of his death. It was exhilarating news, and I did not know why Sarai looked so unhappy; she was peering at me as though the world were about to end.

"What's wrong?" I asked again.

Sarai blinked at me. "Good news and bad," she said, and did not even try to smile. "Which do you want to hear first?"

"Either. Both."

"The good news is that I'm not going crazy." She took a deep breath, dropped her hands into her lap—and, for just a moment, looked as though she wasn't about to say more.

But then she peered up at me again, and said, all in a rush: "Al Mualim asked me not to speak of this to anyone—but Isra, he agrees with me: there is a traitor in Masyaf."

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys make writing less lonely.

Since there haven't been historical notes for a while, here is some random stuff about makeup:

Stibnite, or antimony sulfide, is a very pretty shiny metallic crystal that you dig out of the ground. If you grind it up and then put it in grease, you get old timey eyeliner (kohl); if you grind it up and put it together with potassium chlorate (chlorate of potash), gum arabic, and starch, you get a much more dangerous version of the modern friction match. (Potash is used in lots of things, like soap, and I was actually thinking of writing a story where Sarai makes soap or something, and then I realized that I'd been spending too much time around chemical engineers. Anyway, to get potash all you have to do is burn wood, then take the ashes ("pot ashes," get it?) and leach water through them, then take the water and wait for it to dry, and there should be potash crystals left over.)

White lead is made from lead and vinegar, and it was mainly used as a pigment in painting, but could also be applied to the face as face...whitener? (There's a name for stuff you put on your face to even out the color, or something, but I don't know what it is because I've never used makeup.) You put vinegar in a jar, put lead plates on top of the jar (not immersed), and then bury the whole thing in manure, and the interactions between the carbonic acid from the fermentation of the manure and the acetic acid from the vinegar would make white lead accumulate on the surface of the lead plates. It is kind of gross, but that is the price you must pay to look pale and beautiful. Also, you will get lead poisoning, which is the other price you must pay to look pale and beautiful.

If you want to color your lips, you had a few choices: crushed gemstones, crushed insects, or seaweed extract. The first option is expensive; the second option is...well, _insects_ (there was a certain kind of beetle that apparently makes a really nice lip color, if you don't mind having dead beetles in and around your mouth); the third option is poisonous. Later on people figured out that if you put fish scales into your lipstick, your lips would look nice and shiny! (This still happens. Your makeup may very well have fish scales in it.)

(On a related by not chronologically relevant note, when radium was first discovered people thought that being in the glow was healthy and good for you. Companies sold "radium tonic water" that you would drink, such that you might have that radiant healthy glow inside yourself. It took people a while to figure out the connection between "radioactive" and "causes cancer." Then the lawsuits started.)

I guess the moral of the story is: everything is trying to kill you.

In any case, doing research has pretty much tanked any desire I ever had to put colors on my face, which is why I am writing fanfic on a Friday night. On the bright side, I will have a much longer life to enjoy not being asked out ever.


	30. Assassins: Opening

A/N: So I've been getting questions about who this traitor could possibly be. If you don't know, I guess I don't want to spoil it-but come on, guys, you've all played the game, right? Or at least know the plot summary?

* * *

We went to the bureau together that night, Sarai and I, and Malik was there at the door to let us in when we knocked. If he was surprised to see Sarai had accompanied me, it certainly didn't show; Malik was far too busy scowling at the world for any astonishment to register. "Get inside," he told us brusquely, and shut the door behind us when we hurried in. And: "What the hell happened yesterday? The Templars are in an uproar."

The city alarms. "Altair didn't tell you?"

"Altair's explanation," Malik said, looking grim, "did not satisfy me."

He was annoyed. I exchanged an uneasy glance with Sarai, and we followed him past the dusty shopfront and into the common room. Altair was there, waiting for us; another assassin was there too, a novice by the looks of him, and he leaped to his feet as soon as we entered the room.

"Rafik," he said, reverent.

"Isra, Sarai, this is Harun, lately sent from Masyaf to spend a year in Jerusalem. He arrived this morning. With a letter from Al Mualim, requesting that I take him on as my apprentice." Malik glowered at me. "I wonder who suggested to him that I might be suitable for such a task?"

All right, so it had been me, but I wasn't going to admit it. I gave Malik my best innocent look.

Malik snorted incredulously. "This," he told Harun, "is our meddling strategist who will try to manage your life if you are not careful. And I'm sure you remember Sarai, since you've spoken of nothing but her unsurpassable beauty all day—"

"What?" I said.

"Oh!" Sarai said, and blushed. And, to me, "He was the messenger Malik sent earlier."

"Erk," said the novice—or something close to that, anyway—and sat down abruptly and put his face into his hands. He was very young; sixteen, at the most, and I frowned at Malik.

"Be nice," I told him reprovingly.

"Women," Malik pronounced, "will be the ruin of the Brotherhood. Especially when trained assassins abandon all sense of caution to go chasing after them—wouldn't you agree, Altair?"

Altair glanced up and said nothing. Malik went stomping to the door.

"Where—" I began.

"I'm going to get some wine," he snapped at me. "Either that, or to throw myself off the nearest minaret. You'll find out which it is soon enough."

The door slammed shut behind him.

"What did you tell him?" I asked Altair.

"That there was a girl, and the guards had caught her." His voice was low. "He was displeased with my decision to interfere."

"Well," I said, "he'll be even more displeased when he gets back, because I'll have to tell her that the Templars caught her again after we left."

"_What?_" said Altair.

—

So that was an uncomfortable explanation.

This is what happened: the flower-girl had run for the gate, and the guards had caught her again.

How had they known to take her?

The man who had stalked Sarai from Acre was looking for women, specifically, and he could have put out orders to capture this flower-girl after she had been seen so publicly with an assassin. Or the guards might merely have been angry, and looking for revenge—

In any case, she was with the Templars now—with the Grand Master, I suspected, or in a city prison at the very least—and whatever little information she provided at been enough to convince them of our danger. Talal, for one, was afraid for his life.

Which was unfortunate timing, because we really were about to kill him.

"Wait," said Altair, when I would have moved on to the contents of Al Mualim's letter. "This girl—where is she now?"

I blinked at him. "I don't know."

"No," Malik said sharply, slamming his cup onto the table with enough force that some of his wine came sloshing over the sides. "You caused enough trouble with your recklessness yesterday. You are not going to cause _more_ by trying to find her."

"So you would just have us leave her to the Templars?" Altair demanded.

"You had little enough trouble with _that_ at Solomon's Temple," Malik said, and all of a sudden the room was deathly quiet, and his hand was on his sword.

The stared at each other from across the table, these two men who had once been friends, and the threat of violence hung in the air like lightning before a storm.

Harun was gazing nervously between them. Sarai drew in a sharp breath and poked me in the ribs. I straightened up.

"Enough," I ordered.

Everyone turned to look at me. "Malik," I said. "I should have kept a closer eye on Altair yesterday, and this mess comes from my failure to do so. You will not blame him for this."

"But—"

"Altair. It is not your place to who we rescue or not; it is mine. And you _will not_ go after this girl again."

"I—"

I brought my palms down sharply onto the table, and both of them fell silent. "If _either_ of you says another unhelpful word this evening," I said, "I will cut out both your tongues and send them to Al Mualim. Do you understand?"

Altair pressed his lips together, but gave me a tight nod; Malik muttered something that was probably "yes" into his winecup. I scowled at both of them.

_Men_.

Sarai gave me a congratulatory sort of pat on my back, where no one else could see.

"Anyway," I said, "we have more important things to be arguing about. Al Mualim wants Talal dead within the week."

"_What?_" Malik said.

—

Al Mualim wanted Talal dead because there was a traitor in Masyaf, but of course I could not say _that_ because it was supposed to be a secret, so I avoided everyone's questions of _why_ and skipped straight to the _how_ instead.

"He's given us five days," I told them. "Well—four now, I suppose. But he's set the date and the hour and asked it to be done at that time—"

"The Grand Master—" Malik objected.

"Unimportant." Al Mualim had deemed it so. "I should get the name if I can, but if I cannot—it is more important that Talal is dead before the week is out."

"Oh, yes," Malik said darkly. "This sudden change of plans isn't strange at all. What will you do, Isra?"

I closed my eyes and considered. "Talal has asked me to report to him," I said aloud, "so I will use that to gain entry. But I think I will need a diversion. Do we know Talal's schedule?"

"The report should be on my desk." He nodded at Harun, who ran off to fetch it.

"I can see having an apprentice has been a great inconvenience," I remarked.

Malik glowered at me.

It was unusual for a city rafik to take on an apprentice, true, but he certainly needed the company; it would be a pity if the dai of Jerusalem turned into a surly recluse. I suppose I could have been a little more subtle about my influence—but that was my only regret. I suppressed a smile and turned back to the map laid out on the table.

"I saw the order for Talal's death," Malik was saying to Sarai, "but I hadn't thought that Al Mualim would give such specific instructions. In the past he has only ever set deadlines—"

"I'm sure he has his reasons," she murmured back. Sarai still sounded worried; thankfully, Malik did not remark upon it if he had noticed.

"And are you here to spin some poison for him?" he asked.

"I don't know," Sarai said, and glanced at me. "Isra, I haven't set up my things yet, because I didn't want to bother you with the fumes—but if you need any poisons, I'll ask Yusuf if I can do it in the spare room."

"I'm not sure yet," I told her.

Harun came bursting back into the room then, breathlessly waving a piece of paper in the air, and Malik took it from him and we all turned to consult it. Talal, it seemed, would be going to inspect his slaves four days hence, and he kept them in a warehouse near the northern edge of the city.

"I know that building," Altair said abruptly. "He holds meetings there, as well, and every two weeks—"

"—every two weeks he goes to inspect them, just before they are sold and moved out," Malik said. "Perhaps we could set them all loose, if you need a diversion."

"No." The slaves would be weakened, from hunger and beatings if nothing else—and of course there _would_ be other things, Sarai had explained to me in greater detail of all the potions that could be used to render a man docile without the use of chains— "They won't run, or at least not well enough to give us a few hours. The guards could have tem rounded up in moments."

"We only need him dead," Malik said. "We would not need a few _hours_."

"I was ordered to get the name of the Templar Grand Master if I could," I pointed out. "I think I _can_, if I can lure Talal away from the warehouse and we have enough time for him to be interrogated. But we need the attention of the city guards to be elsewhere, and this warehouse would do if only we can think of something to do with it—"

"Wait," Sarai said, peering carefully at the map.

And: "Altair, have you been here?"

"Yes," said Altair.

"What's near it?"

"Not much," he said, a trace of puzzlement was in his eyes. "There is another warehouse nearby; it's the one Talal uses for his meetings, and he keeps some of his guards there. The two buildings take up most of the street."

Sarai was nodding; it was prudent for a slaver to choose an abandoned area to keep his wares, even if he did have the protection—somehow—of the Jerusalem guards. "What is the warehouse made of?" she asked.

"What?" The trace of puzzlement had grown.

"What was it built from? Wood or stone?"

"Both—stone for the lower walls, and wood for the roof, and the doors and gates are iron to keep the prisoners inside—"

"Good," Sarai said, and looked up at us and blinked a little, in the flickering candlelight. "I mean—well, we could have done this anyway, but I didn't want to hurt anyone. Besides Talal, I mean. And I think—if we can release the slaves, and take them somewhere else beforehand—"

"There would be carts nearby," Malik said, nodding. "They would be moved soon, anyway. We can bring more carts and take them all out of the city. But what would we do with three dozen slaves?"

"I'll take them to Masyaf."

"What?" it was Malik's turn to say.

"No, she's right," I said. "There's a Templar agent looking for her, and it would be safest if Sarai left Jerusalem. If a proper guard can be spared, anyway."

"I'll only need a couple of assassins," Sarai said. "The rest can be hired, and the cart-drivers too, and Al Mualim can decide what to do with the slaves once we reach Masyaf. By then the poison should have worn off. We could probably send them home if their minds haven't been too ruined—"

And she looked at me and I remembered what she had seen in Acre: Garnier de Naplouse and his hideous experiments; men gone mad from fear and poison and hunger; screaming, at all hours of the night, and what was worse was when the screaming stopped.

"—it won't matter what we do with them, anyway," she continued, swallowing, "or even if the Templars find out. Once we've finished with Talal, they'll be too busy to chase after us. So: can it be done? Taking the slaves to Masyaf, and me with them?"

"Yes," Malik said, and he was looking puzzled too. "But then we would have an empty warehouse—"

Sarai smiled.

"Smoke," she murmured, almost to herself, and touched her fingertip to the map, "so that it can be seen across the city, and fire, to keep the guards occupied; and noise, to draw their attention. And it will be empty, so that we have spared the innocent in accordance with the Creed. Isra, do you think—?"

It was a good plan, and an elegant one. "Yes," I said. "Yes, if you can do it without suspicion beforehand—"

Malik and Altair and Harun looked completely bewildered. Malik, at least, had the presence of mind to ask: "What will you need?"

"Charcoal," Sarai said. "And sulfur, and saltpeter. As much of the last as you can get."

There was a light shining in her eyes, bright as Love and brighter than Beauty: like secrets kept, like holy things, and she glanced up at me and smiled again—and oh, we had learned so many things in Masyaf, but nothing so important than the value of Knowledge itself.

_Look_, Sarai did not say. _Look what I have learned, and how we might use it_.

Malik cleared his throat. "What does that make?" he asked, and Sarai turned her brilliant smile to him.

"Explosions," she said.

* * *

A/N: So I've written myself into a corner, haven't I? On the one hand, Sarai and explosions are cool. On the other hand, Isra definitely won't be there. This is the problem with first-person narration. :|

Some things:

1. I don't like the summary for "Bitter Leaves." It is pretty non-descriptive. I was tempted to change it to something like "will female OC win Altair's heart?" but I guess I'll save that for if I really can't come up with anything. So! Help me out, guys. Suggest a story summary in the reviews, or through PM or something, and if I wind up using yours, I'll write you a story! (i.e., I'll fill an AC-related request with a one-shot, although I can't make any promises as to how good it'll be if you request a sex scene)

2. If you've been reading this story and you like it, please consider reading my other AC fics, which are all short and don't involve any OCs. (For some reason the very concept of OC's has been annoying the hell out of me recently.) My favorite of those is probably "Sundown," and the recent one about Machiavelli. So! Check them out.


	31. Templars: The Sacrificial Pawn

A/N: I FAILED ALL MY FINALS askdjklfs (sorry for the delay)  


* * *

Afterwards, while Malik and Sarai bent their heads low over the map and murmured to each other of weights and alchemy and the nature of stone, Altair went out into the courtyard, and I followed him. The night was dark and still. We sat together on the narrow bench and looked up at the stars.

"You should make your peace with Malik," I said.

He didn't answer. I glanced at him; Altair was not looking disdainful, which I supposed was a start. "I suppose you don't want to talk to him about it," I added. "And he doesn't want to talk to you, either, I'm sure—but you two _can't_ keep arguing like this—"

"The girl," Altair said. "You're really willing to just leave her to the Templars?"

It was such a foolish venture, when all was said and done: we had rescued a girl, we had triggered the city alarms, and in the end she had only been caught again—I ran my fingers through my hair and tried not to dwell on how futile it had been. "Who is she, that we should rescue her?" I asked. "Does she have information we need, or gold? Is she secretly one of our agents?"

"If we do not help her," he said softly, "no one else can."

And it was true, but there were more urgent matters to attend to—and Altair had been a Master Assassin, once, and he had not gotten that far by chasing after wayward flower-girls instead of focusing on his mission. Had he had such a change of heart since his demotion? I sighed.

"All right," I said. "If you want to find her so badly, I will give you leave to do so—but I will not be taking you along when I go to confront Talal, and I will not bring you with me on any mission I go on, ever again. What shall it be?"

It took a moment for my words to sink in, but then he tilted his head and stared at me, his eyes dark and intense beneath the starlight. "What sort of choice is that?" he demanded.

Oh, how talented he was—so deadly with the blade and bow, and he could easily be a Master Assassin again if only he understood why he had been demoted at all—but Altair had always been too much a prodigy to bow to any constraints, and he had always been too stubborn to acknowledge it. "It's not your loyalty that I doubt," I told him, "or your skill—but you have never learned to follow orders. It makes you unreliable."

"And if these _orders_ are foolish—"

"Do you think the Templars won't notice if you go after her?" I asked. "Do you think _her_ life is important enough to put the rest of us in danger as we move against Talal? Look for her if you like, but I _won't_ bring you with me if I can't trust you not to go running off on a whim—"

"Who else would you take, then?" he demanded. "None of our agents in Jerusalem know Talal's guards as I do, and certainly none of them know _you_ as I do—"

As though he knew me so well.

"I didn't say I would take someone else," I informed him. "I only said that I wouldn't take _you_. If you insist on being difficult, then I will go to Talal _alone_."

Altair looked at me for a long, long moment, and his expression was almost disbelieving. "You can't be serious," he said finally.

Did he think I was bluffing? "Try me, then."

Malik had left a lamp burning in the courtyard, and Altair nearly kicked it over as he straightened up. Shadows went flickering everywhere. His hand was on my wrist, and he looked like he wanted to hit something.

"This isn't fair," he said.

Of course this wasn't _fair_, it wasn't fair that the Templars had captured her and it wasn't fair that I was making him choose and it wasn't _fair_ that there was injustice in the world at all, but we were not Templars, to impose our vision of order upon all of humanity.

"No," I said. "It isn't. But you knew that."

His grip tightened.

"I need an answer by tomorrow night," I told him. "There are preparations I'll have to make if you aren't coming—"

"I won't go after her."

I blinked at him.

"You looked surprised," Altair said coolly, and let go of my wrist.

And it was true: I hadn't been expecting him to accede so quickly, if at all; not that I was unhappy that he had. "I wouldn't have been _angry_, if you wanted to find her instead—"

"No," said he. "You wouldn't have been angry. But you would have sought out Talal alone; do you think I've forgotten how much we would lose, if you were to be captured or killed?"

Oh, yes. That.

Relief was a hollow thing, turning to ashes in my hands.

"Of course," I said, and startled myself with my own bitterness. "Al Mualim would never forgive you if you misplaced his most expensive investment—how could any of us ever forget?" I was a weapon for Masyaf, one of the most dangerous things Al Mualim had ever commissioned; of course I would have to be defended against theft or destruction, of course I was too important to be abandoned—and it _hurt_ and I didn't know why, because it was true, wasn't it? Masyaf could not afford to lose me.

And Altair was too _loyal_ to pretend otherwise.

I brushed the thought aside, impatient with myself for considering such pointlessness—and I had been ungracious, too, when Altair had just promised me his life. "Never mind," I added hastily. "I'm sorry. I'm glad you'll be there."

He regarded me, expressionless, and said nothing. I sighed.

"I'll ask after the girl," I said. "When this is over, I'll see if we can find her—don't get your hopes up, of course, because by then it might be too late—but we'll try, if she's so important."

"Isra," he said. "Are you going to ask me why?"

Did it matter? Some secrets were worth more undisturbed. "I won't pry."

"No?"

Did he disbelieve me? "No."

"She reminded me of you," said Altair, as though I hadn't spoken at all. I stared.

"She—what?"

"The girl." He wasn't looking at me. "She reminded me of you, and I couldn't let the guards take her."

The world went still. I gripped the edge of the bench and stared at him. It was so _quiet_ in the courtyard, but that couldn't be right, because just a moment ago the city bells had been tolling out the hour—Altair was frowning absently at his sleeves, the white of his robes gone gray in the darkness, and he had just told me something important but I had no idea what it meant. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Well." Altair glanced at me then, and looked a little rueful. "I thought you would want to know."

"I—"

But I couldn't think of any sort of response. My heart was pounding in my throat, and we were sitting far too close together, and all of a sudden I remembered the touch of his fingers against my wrist; the silence stretched out between us, the lamplight glittered on his daggers as he shifted—

Altair had eyes like an eagle's, dangerous and sharp.

It wasn't a cold night, but I was shivering anyway.

Was I afraid of him? But no, that was foolish: none of the Hashshashin would harm me, unless I turned traitor first, and I certainly didn't remember doing _that_ in the past ten minutes—

"I should go talk to Malik," I blurted out.

Altair inclined his head. I fled back into the bureau in a haze of bewilderment.

—

Plotting Talal's downfall drew my attention for the next few days, and it was fortunate that I had this to do or else I would have driven myself to distraction thinking about Altair; there were so many things I did not understand, except that Talal had to die, so I thought about that and little else. The weight of all the things said and unsaid was growing heavy on my mind—I was glad there were more important things to do, or else I would have done nothing at all.

Sarai and I spent much of the next few nights at the bureau. Shipments came in on Malik's orders—and men, too, pulled from their various stations from across the city to assist in this mission—and Sarai took over most of the common room to work her alchemy, lecturing at the assassins who had been given to aid her. For my part, I met with Malik in the shopfront amongst the maps and scrolls, and together we spoke of logistics—how long it would take for a caravan to reach Masyaf, how much it might cost, what to do about Yusuf and how to cover our tracks in other ways—

And then, almost before we were ready, it was time.

But that hardly came as a surprise. Al Mualim had given us only four days, after all.

—

Sarai left in the early morning, and we said our goodbyes on the doorstep as the sunlight came creeping through the windows; she had dressed for a day at the markets, with her hair pulled back into a neat braid and a basket on her arm, and when she came to hug me I could still smell the sharp scent of black powder lingering on her skin. "Good luck," Sarai said, holding my hands. "You'll be all right?"

"I'll be fine," I promised.

"Safety and peace," she murmured, and went out into the street for a day of shopping and arson.

The house emptied over the next half hour. The maid and the cook were sent out for the household groceries, and Yusuf took the footman as an escort while he went out to visit friends; it wasn't long before I was all alone, and from the windows I could see Talal's guard eyeing the entrance suspiciously. Doubtless he was bored with such a dull posting, where nothing of interest ever happened—

Today would be an exciting day for him. I drew the curtain shut and went upstairs to prepare.

—

My greatest mistake with Tamir had been my silence.

I had been so afraid of letting our secrets loose that I hadn't said very much at all, and in the end Tamir had found me docile and uninteresting for it—and it was not the very worst thing I could have done, but men paid no attention to quiet, virtuous women. Almas had told me once that men enjoyed a _challenge_. I had been fifteen, and hadn't understood.

What had she said? That I should be vivid, and daring, and a prize to be captured.

That I should command attention.

So I indulged in those theatrics reserved for such moments: oils to smooth out my skin, color on my lips, kohl to draw attention to my eyes; rosewater for scent, gold and rubies around my wrists, a pretty gown and jewels in my hair—oh, my dress was a lovely thing, all soft gray linen edged with blue silk, and cut so flatteringly that even Altair paused for a look when he came in through the window—it was a pity that it would be ruined, after today.

"You're late," I informed him, winding back my hair with one of Sarai's dagger-sharp hairpins. Altair jerked his eyes back up to my face.

"Guards," he said, briefly. And, "Here, Malik sent this."

He held out a length of red silk. I took it from him, carefully, and tied it around my waist like a sash. The crimson gleamed against the gray.

It looked a little odd, but—well. This was how things were done, amongst the Hashshashin.

"Thank you," I said, and tucked my dagger into my boot.

"Malik's men are in position," he said. "Harun will take the message when you give the signal—do you remember it?"

I tried not to roll my eyes. "Of course I remember it."

"Good."

A threadbare scarf to cover my hair and a worn cloak for my clothes, and hopefully I would not look too conspicuous out on the streets. I nodded towards the table. "Sarai left some poison for you, if you should need it," I said. "And the other things—"

"I remember," said Altair, sounding impatient. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Then _go_."

Nerves were making us both edgy. "Safety and peace," I told him, and shut the door behind me as I went. Altair would take to the rooftops as always; Sarai and Malik were at the warehouse; Harun was waiting for my signal—

I needed to stop worrying.

It was a bright day outside. Dust stirred in the restless wind; on the horizon, there were a few gathered clouds drifting against the sun. The guard looked up warily at my approach.

"You shouldn't be here—" he began.

"I need to see Talal," I said, with every bit of authority I could muster; this man looked as though he were used to taking orders. "Bring me to him, now, before it is too late."

"But he's busy today—"

"There will be an attempt on his life," I snapped. "I have to warn him."

"What? How do you know? When? Why?"

"I'm not telling you anything," I informed him. "I am tired of being left behind. Take me to Talal now, and I will deliver the warning, or else he will not be warned at all—"

"We have orders that you aren't to leave the house," the guard said, looking torn.

"And who will pay you your wages when Talal is dead?"

He wavered for a moment, and then I had him. "I—fine," he said. "But don't cause any trouble, or—or you'll really regret it. And don't try to run off."

"Where would I run to?" I shook my head, impatient. "Let's go. We're wasting time."

"All right, all right. Stay quiet." He took my arm, looking more nervous by the moment, and we left Yusuf's house behind and went into Jerusalem.

—

We had always been wary of going after Talal because he was paranoid.

Admittedly, he was a Templar and we were assassins and therefore he had very good reason to be paranoid—but his security had always been too much for us to breach, and that had irked Malik to no end. Talal employed too many guards for us to attempt a full assault on his estate, which was hardly our style anyway, but his patrols were too well-timed for us to slip in between them with the alarm being raised, and if the alarm _were_ raise—well, Talal was very good at running and hiding, and he did have a great many guards to slow our chase. He would have been next to impossible for one of our men to corner.

But for me—

For me, the gate opened, the guards stood aside, and I walked past them all and straight into his haven.

—

The signal for Harun was a dropped handkerchief. No one noticed it flutter to the dust behind me as I went through the gate; from the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow detach itself from a wall and dash away, and then I was inside the courtyard and my guardsman was anxiously handing me off to his sergeant. It was the work of a moment to convince him, too, that I needed to see Talal. None of the guards very much wanted to deal with me—and I was here already, and Talal had given such unclear orders as to who I was and how I should be treated, and anyway, at least three men had heard him say that I was to report to him within the week—

So it was a brief, heated chain of "let my superior handle this," and finally the captain took me into the house, very irritably, and brought me to Talal's study upstairs. Two more guardsman were standing by the door. They cast us doubtful glances as we approached.

"Out of my way," the captain snapped, and the pair of them jumped to attention and gave their salutes. Talal's men were very well trained.

I tried not to sigh.

"Sir," the captain called, rapping at the door. "Sir, the widow is here—"

"What?" came Talal's voice. The door opened a moment later to reveal his scowl. "What is she doing here?" he demanded. "Who let her in?"

"She brings word of an attempt on your life, but will only speak to you—"

"Bring her in," Talal said, and stood aside as the captain brought me through. The door closed after us. "Speak," he ordered.

"The assassins plan to kill you," I blurted out, pulling away from the captain. Talal looked impatient.

"I knew that, you foolish girl," he said.

"I mean, today." I twisted my hands in my scarf; it was not so hard to feign nervousness. "I overheard the merchant talking with one of the assassins who had come to see him, and they are planning an ambush for you—"

"What? Where?"

Did the man have to interrupt me at every turn? "At your warehouse," I told him. Talal's eyes had narrowed; his breathing was sharper. He believed me. He was afraid. "They said you would visit today, so they have laid a trap for you and your men when you go—"

"How did they find out?" he demanded.

Because we had spies who tracked his schedule. Because he was not so subtle as to escape our notice. Because his messengers were intercepted and we eavesdropped on his guards. I did not roll my eyes.

"I don't know!" I cried instead. "I only heard that they were waiting for you, and the assassin bragged of how easy it would be to kill you today, because you never take more than three or four men with you when you go." This was to allay suspicion from the city guards, although from Talal's expression he was clearly regretting ever having cared about such a thing. "There will be assassins waiting for you at the warehouse today. You can't go!"

"Of course not," he snapped. "I'm not going to walk into a trap."

"Sir," the captain said, "she may be lying—"

"We can't run the risk." Talal turned to me again, scowling. "How many men are they sending? Do you know?"

I shook my head. "He didn't say," I told him. "Only that he was bringing more than enough men to handle you and your guards."

Talal was pacing. I swept a quick glance around the study: bookshelves along the walls; a desk placed beneath the window; two carpets and three chairs and a bench piled with papers. There were two doors. The window shutters were open, with a view of a small garden below and a wall.

I moved, as discreetly as I could, towards the desk and the window.

"We must assume they know our men are well-trained," Talal muttered. "How many men would they have?"

"Seven," the captain offered. "Maybe ten. Not more than that, or we would have heard of it."

"What else did he say?" Talal asked me.

"I didn't hear any more," I said. "You won't go, will you? They are making preparations as we speak, he said they would set the traps this morning and I came as soon as I could to stop you—"

His eyes sharpened. "This morning? Now?"

"—yes?"

"Then _we_ will ambush them," Talal said. To the captain: "Take fifteen of our men and go to the warehouse, and kill anyone there. Pull the north and eastern patrols; that should be enough to handle whatever the assassins have brought."

"But sir, can we trust what she says?"

"Why would she lie?" Talal demanded. "And if she is, then _I_ will deal with her—and if she isn't, then we can take those damned assassins by surprise for a change. Are you going or not?"

The captain looked as though he wanted to protest further. But Talal had already been seduced by the promise of an easy victory—and it was difficult to argue with the man who paid your wages, after all, so the captain only bowed, and said "Yes, sir" a little ungracefully, and went out of the room to summon his men. Talal turned to me.

"If you have lied," he said coldly, "I will make you wish that I had only killed you."

"I _haven't_," I said, and gazed up at him, and trembled as I pushed back my scarf and loosened the cloak. "Please, the merchant won't take me back after this, the assassins might want to kill me—please, will you send me back to Damascus?"

"Damascus," Talal said. His eyes raked down the length of my dress and up again. "And where will you go, once you are there?"

"I—my father had friends, there. I could go to one of them—"

"Your father is dead," he told me. "Why would his friends take you in? Your husband is dead. The assassins kidnapped you and used you for bait—do you think they cannot find you again, if you return to Damascus? And now, after today, you are of no further use to me as a spy or messenger."

He gave me a moment to let that sink in. I wondered how long it would take for the captain to gather his men and leave for the warehouse—ten minutes? Fifteen? And how long after that for the new patrols to resume?

"But perhaps," said Talal, who was obviously not thinking about guard patrols, "you could be of use to me in some other way."

"I want to go home," I whispered. But I didn't back away as he drew closer.

"You can have a new home in Jerusalem," he told me, magnanimous. "Did you think I would abandon a jewel to be trampled in the mud? You may have a new life here, and it will not be so unpleasant—"

How mercurial he was, that he could threaten to kill me in one breath and then promise me sanctuary in another, and I hated him for it, and I hated the way he looked at me, and I tried not to remember that I had a dagger in my boot. I cast down my eyes, demure. I let him unfasten my cloak.

"The assassins—" I said, in a halfhearted protest.

"It will be some time before we have news of them," Talal told me.

He was wrong, of course, but he could not possibly have known that.

—

Talal was in the mood to be coaxing. It gave me time to delay, though not as much time as I would have liked, and by the time the knock came at the door Talal had managed to corner me against a bookshelf; he glanced up, scowling, and said: "They can't possibly have sent a messenger this quickly—"

The door burst open.

I slammed my elbow into the side of Talal's head and twisted away. He went stumbling backwards in shock. Altair caught him by the collar.

"What—" Talal began, but he never finished the sentence, because his legs went flying out from beneath him and then he was on his knees with a hidden blade at his throat.

Altair glanced at me.

"Just tie him up," I said, and went to the doorway. The two men who had been standing guard were dead now, knives protruding from their chests, and there were smears of blood on the walls where they were slumped. I shut the door but left it unbolted.

The other entrance, when I went to check on it, was deserted; there were a set of narrow stairs leading down to what I assumed was the servant's hall. Talal was too paranoid to keep many servants. If we were lucky, then they would all be occupied elsewhere—and if we were not, well, some things could not be helped.

I shut that door, too, and turned around. Altair had tied Talal to one of the chairs. He must have hit him; there was blood on the slaver's lip, and he was looking a little dazed. Not that I was sorry about it in the least.

"You must be wondering what's going on," I said to him.

Talal snarled at that, and spat out: "You _betrayed _me—"

As though he had ever held my loyalty at all. "I was never yours," I said sharply. "And if you do not hold your tongue, I will have it cut out. Be _silent_ before I decide you are too much trouble to bargain with."

He shut up.

"Good," I said, and leaned out the window a little. The garden, too, was empty. I nudged the shutters open a little wider.

"Your guards are dead," I told Talal. "Cut down, or poisoned—and the ones you sent to the warehouse will be dead, too, soon enough. Your servants are not here. Your neighbors will not come to check on you. We could kill you now, and no one would know or care that you died."

"What do you want?" he demanded, straining at the cords that bound him. "Money? I have silver, and gold too, you can take it—"

"Gold," I said, and snorted. "No, I do not want gold."

"Then what?"

"Do you know who I am?" I asked him.

Talal looked as though he wanted to suggest several things that I might be, but Altair's knife against his back must have stopped him, because he only swallowed and said: "No."

My smile was cold, even to me. "There is a foreign Templar in Jerusalem, and he has been called from Rome. I am the one he is hunting."

"He told us you were beautiful," Talal said bitterly. "But he never mentioned your treachery. What do you want?"

"I want the name of your patron."

Talal stared at me.

"Who is the Grand Master here in Jerusalem?" I asked him, tapping my fingers idly against his desk. "Where does he live? How many guards? What are his secrets? This man is the one I am hunting—and I do not care, slaver, if you live or die in the process, so give me a reason to let you live."

"He would kill me if I told you," Talal spat out.

"Then you must help us kill him before he can get to you." I caught his eye, leaned forward to draw him in: "The Master of the Assassins, in Masyaf, has ordered this Grand Master's death. Tell me where he is and we will see him dead within the week."

"And after that?" Talal demanded. "You'll kill me anyway—"

"Don't flatter yourself," I said. "Run to the countryside if you like; we have greater goals in mind than chasing some slaver who got above himself."

Did he believe me? He certainly wanted to; the threat of Altair's blades were real enough, and here I was, offering him a respite. Talal was afraid.

He was always afraid. It was useful—it kept him from thinking. Talal did not wonder at how I could have come to command the assassins; Talal did not ask who Altair was; Talal did not, indeed, ask much of anything at all, only stared at me furious and terrified, and I leaned forward a little more and spun out a promise of safe haven where he could hide.

"Tell me what I want to know," I said, "and I can be persuaded that there are more important men to kill; _some_ Templar must die soon, but it need not be you."

His eyes flickered to Altair, who was doing a very good job of looking threatening while holding sharp objects in his hands. I tilted my head. Altair scowled but moved away.

"Let's start with a simple question," I said. "Who is the Templar Grand Master over Jerusalem?"

Talal swallowed. He opened his mouth, shut it, swallowed again.

"Majd Addin," he said finally, his voice cracking a little. "The—Saladin's regent."

My breath caught in my throat. "What?"

"Salah al-din's regent," Talal said, louder this time. He curled his lip. "You didn't know? You didn't suspect? And here I thought you had spies everywhere—"

"Be silent," I said, and paced restlessly to the other side of the desk. Majd Addin, the regent of Jerusalem—no wonder the foreign Templar had had access to the guards, and no wonder that Talal's operations had gone hidden for so long—

What else had he been doing? I had heard that this man was a harsh judge, but perhaps the executions he had held were for Templar enemies; perhaps he was trading Salah al-Din's secrets to the Crusaders, and dragging out this war so that he could hold power and merchants like Talal could make him coin. All these things I suspected, and worse.

Saladin's_ regent_ was a Templar.

I would never have suspected that it went that far—

"Isra," Altair said. "We know where he lives."

"Yes." And how many men he had, and how he would be approached; the regent was an important enough man to warrant watching even when we hadn't known that he was a Templar. "We should go. We need to tell Malik."

"Wait!" Talal was struggling again, his breathing sharp as he glanced between us. "You promised to let me go if I told you—"

I regarded him, and pretended to consider.

"I never promised to let you go," I said. "I wonder how long it would take for someone to find you, if we left you tied up here? And you have not been kind to your servants—perhaps they might decide not to free you after all, even if they found you—or perhaps one of the regent's men will find you, and ask questions about what you let slip—"

"His guards helped smuggle my slaves out of the city," Talal said, feverishly desperate. Sweat was beading on his forehead. "I sold them to a Hospitalier in Acre, until you killed him, and he was allies with the regent that the Crusader king placed there."

"William of Montferrat," I said. The corruption ran deep; we would need to send a courier to the Acre bureau at once. "Who else?"

"That's all I know. Let me go—you can't just leave me here—"

He was telling the truth, too, on all accounts. I sighed. Well, the mission had been a success anyway, and it had been too much to hope for that Talal was ranked highly enough to know any other secrets.

"Shall I kill him?" Altair asked.

"No," I said. Talal was watching me, wariness shading into relief as Altair put away his blades.

"I won't trouble you," Talal promised. "I'll disappear, I won't go to my masters—"

"Yes," I said. "I know you won't."

And I came around behind him, drew my dagger from my boot, pulled back his head and cut his throat.


	32. Assassins: Gambit Accepted

A/N: Short and fluffy.

* * *

There was blood _everywhere._

Talal made a faint gurgling noise as he died. Blood came gushing out of his neck in jagged bursts, splashing across the floor and desk, and I took a step back, and then another, until I was up against a bookshelf and couldn't go any further. The world was wavering around me.

"You cut the vein," Altair said, sounding approving.

"Ergh," I said, or something like it.

"Some novices make the mistake of cutting straight across the front," he told me. "It makes things messier."

It was hard to imagine anything being _more_ messy than this. I clutched at the bookshelf. The room was filling up with the coppery scent of blood.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

"Quite dead," Altair said dryly.

"Good," I said, and sat down, and fainted.

—

When I opened my eyes again, Altair was shaking my shoulder rather impatiently and there was a ringing in my ears. It took me a moment to recognize the sound of the city alarm.

"We have to go," he said. "Can you walk?"

"I'm fine," I snapped at him.

"You _fainted_," he snapped back.

"Only a little bit." And I made the mistake of looking over at the corpse. Talal's head was bent at an unnatural angle, even from behind, and blood was still leaking out across the fine gold braid on his shoulders, and my skirt was splattered with it—

I was trembling, and I had dropped my dagger. Which was ridiculous, because I had hated Talal, and I certainly was not mourning him now—

"Can you get up?" Altair demanded.

"No," I said. My knees had gone weak. My hands were—sticky. And, stupidly: "I don't like blood."

Altair sighed and rose, moving out of my sight. He returned after a moment and dropped something into my lap—the cloak and the scarf I had brought with me before, and these, too, were stained—

"We're leaving," Altair informed me. "Is there anything you need here?"

"I—no. I don't think so."

"Fine." He picked me up. I held on to his shoulder and closed my eyes a moment too late—Talal's neck was a gory mess, and through the red I could see a flash of something paler—bone? Had I cut that deep? Or perhaps it was the column of his throat—

I tried not to think about it, and I tried not to remember the anatomical pictures Shadha had shown me from the books in Masyaf, and I shook violently and considered that being this squeamish probably boded poorly for future ventures in the field.

"Oh, hell," I said, trying not to panic, and clutched at Altair's arm. We were going down the stairs to the servant's hall—sideways, because it was so narrow—and he raised his eyebrows and glanced down at me. "Promise you won't tell Malik," and it probably wasn't the most dignified thing I'd ever said, but I said it anyway. "Or—or Al Mualim. Or anyone. He'll hear about it and think I'm unsuitable and never give me an assignment again—"

"I won't tell," Altair said.

I peered up at him suspiciously. We came to the bottom of the stairs, and Altair kicked open a door; then we were out in the garden, the blood-splattered study above us, and I wished that we'd thought to close the shutters because there were streaks of red on them now—

"You're being very nice about this," I said, a trifle accusing. He shrugged and put me down on a bench.

"Every novice is shaken by his first kill," he told me. "They would understand."

"Really?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. It might have been a smile. "Really," Altair said. And, "We're going to climb the wall. Can you do that?"

The wall. I pushed myself up and looked around. Off in the distance, behind Talal's house, I could see a faint streak of smoke against the sky—

That would be the warehouse. And it would also be why the city alarms were ringing. The plot came back to me, in bits and piece: Sarai would have returned to Yusuf's house by now, to hide there until darkness gave her the cover to slip out of the city; the slaves were already on their way out of Jerusalem; Malik and his assassins would be handling the last of Talal's men and going to ground to avoid the city guards. "My dagger," I said, distractedly.

"Upstairs."

To leave a warning. I remembered. This is how things are done— "Give me a knife, then," I said, and Altair handed me one, and I slashed through my ruined skirt. There was blood on my hands that I tried not to look at.

We went over the garden wall. The air smelled like ashes; I wished that I had doused myself with perfume.

—

It was half a mile later in the nearest safehouse that I finally gathered my wits and remembered to ask after the guards. "Anyone who might have seen you is dead," Altair assured me, sharpening his knives by the door. "No one will know that you were there."

"Good." I let out a breath and finished changing. The blood-splattered dress was in a corner, where I never wanted to touch it again; I pulled on a shirt loose enough to hide my breasts and a drab skirt. What else was I forgetting? I frowned.

"Here," Altair said, and tossed me the silver pendant.

Yes, that. I caught it. "Thank you."

"You look like a stunned cow," he said wryly. "Put it on."

_That_ drew my attention. I straightened, indignant, and slipped the charm around my neck, warmth flitting over my skin as it took hold. "I do _not_ look like a stunned cow."

"No," Altair agreed, after a moment of consideration. "You're right. You look much more like a horse, actually."

I stared at him.

"That—that was a _joke_," I sputtered. "Did you just make a joke? I think might faint from shock. Again."

"Don't faint," he said, serious now. He put away his knife, rose, came over and took me firmly by the shoulders. "Are you sorry?" he asked.

About Talal? I blinked. "No."

Altair merely looked at me.

"I'm not," I said. "Talal deserved to die. He was a _slaver_."

"I could have done it." His voice was quiet.

"His life was mine," I said, "for—certain indignities." I _wasn't_ sorry. "And Al Mualim sent me the contract, anyway," I added. "So it wouldn't have been fair."

"And this is what you want to do?"

I stared at him some more. He was questioning me as though—as though Talal was the first man I had ever killed. As though it hadn't _counted_, when I'd ordered a man's death through other means; as though it hadn't counted that I'd arranged Tamir's death as I'd arranged Talal's—

"I've served the assassins for most of my life," I informed him. "It would be a little late to change my mind now, wouldn't it?"

He let me go. "Sometimes," Altair said, sounding rueful, "I remember how young you are, and then I forget again."

"What?" I said, because that hadn't made any sense.

"Nothing."

So he seemed determined to be cryptic. I sighed and took off my bracelets, then began the complicated process of unpinning my hair. "Will you tell another joke?" I asked.

Altair, who had retreated back to the door, gave me a wary look. "Why?"

"Because the first one might have been an accident."

"It wasn't."

"But there's no way for me to be sure, otherwise," I pointed out, and gave him my best pleading expression, wide-eyed and imploring. "Please?"

"I don't know any," said Altair, who was beginning to look a bit cornered.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said firmly. And I couldn't help but smile, because he had been kind to me today, and because he was as flustered as any novice before my teasing; the infamous Eagle of Masyaf was human after all. I had not thought it so.

Altair didn't smile back, of course, but one can only expect so many miracles a day.

—

I scrubbed my hands clean, afterwards, and braided my hair and tucked the jewelry into my pockets, and Altair took the remains of my tattered clothes and went out to dump in an alleyway nearby. We were in the poorest district of Jerusalem; someone would take it, bloodstained though it was, which made matters of disposal rather more convenient.

In the meantime, I sat down at the rickety table and considered how I would compose my report to Al Mualim.

And that was when the soldiers arrived.

* * *

A/N: Thanks to everyone for your kind thoughts! I did manage to pass my classes (although I am never touching corporate finance again, ugh), and I'm glad you're all enjoying the story. The next chapter will be longer.

It will not, however, be including a certain scene that I wrote and thought was funny, so I'm going to put it here:

_"You're late," Malik said, glancing up from his maps._

_"We had a tumble in a haystack," I said dryly, and pulled a piece of straw from my hair. "It delayed us somewhat."_

_Malik's eyebrows shot up. Altair was scowling._

_"We_ fell _into a haystack," he snapped._

No notes this time, because it isn't very historical (not much has been historical as we've moved into game canon, alas). Although I will mention that clothes were super-expensive before people invented the mechanical loom. (And also I promised myself that I wouldn't use chess metaphors but ugh, here I am, using chess analogies. ::cringe::)

If anyone is interested, I have a fictionpress account (same penname) and it has one short story there at the moment, so, check that out. I'll probably have more stuff there in the future. Eventually.


	33. Templars: Knight's Move

A/N: Less short. Less fluffy.

You guys are getting this chapter early because I don't know what else to do with it.

* * *

I had a moment's warning. There were several of them, and they wore heavy boots; I heard the sound of their footsteps approaching and got up at once. What were they doing here?

The footsteps stopped, which was even more ominous. A sharp voice barked out orders. I fled to the back room, bolted the door, leaned against it and tried not to breathe. There was a bang. Then a louder one.

They had kicked down the front door. I swore furiously under my breath as I went scrambling up the ladder to the roof.

Every safe house had at least three exits, for which I was grateful; I shoved open the trapdoor and pulled myself out as the shouting started. These were _definitely_ not assassins—city guards, by the sound of it—oh, what were they doing here? This was supposed to be a _safehouse_—

"There!" someone cried. I didn't stop to see if they had spotted me. Instead I ran.

—

This was—

Absurd. That was the only word I could come up with. This was _absurd_. Why had the city guards come _here_, of all places? There was a warehouse up in flames a mile away, but the guards were barging into safehouses instead—and how had they known where to find it? We traded secrets with the thieves and courtesans of the city, but they would not have sold out our hiding places for the sort of gold that the city guard could provide; and, moreover, how had the guards known _which_ place to go? There had been at least three safehouses within a reasonable distance of Talal's estate, if that was their consideration. Why this one? Who had told them? Where was Altair?

Those were the sorts of thoughts that went through my mind as I dashed across the rooftops and prayed that I wouldn't trip and fall and break my neck. The city bells were still ringing. Down below, people were milling about in confusion.

I had no idea what to do. Would I be more conspicuous on the streets or above them? Oh, I had not been trained in this sort of subterfuge—years and years spent in Masyaf, and what I had learned was how to look pretty and smile at men. Perhaps I should have followed Rasha's example and demanded lessons from the arms master.

A shadow caught my eye. Two streets over, there were archers patrolling on the rooftops; I ducked behind a wall and hoped that they hadn't seen me. I couldn't outrun them, and I certainly couldn't outrun their arrows—

_Hide in plain sight._ The second tenant of the Creed. I took a deep breath and flung myself off the edge of the roof.

—

A pile of straw caught me, though not very well. I scrambled out. The street was deserted, which was not good; I should head to the markets and lose myself in the crowd.

All right. That was—well, something like a plan. Close enough.

I started walking,

What was I going to do? Hide until I was sure that I wasn't being followed, and then—go where? Yusuf's house? The bureau would be closed, I remembered, and I wasn't even sure where the other safehouses were—it would have to be Yusuf.

And Sarai would be there, waiting for darkness to slip out of the city, so perhaps I could go with her and return tomorrow. Unless something else went wrong. Oh, everything had been going so well—I had the name of the Templar Grand Master, and another name for the one in Acre, and how inglorious it would be if I were killed by city guards before I could send a report to Masyaf—

I turned a corner and was nearly run down by a cart.

Even more inglorious to be killed by a crate of vegetables breaking over my head. I jumped away. The cart rattled on, heedless, and the driver shouted something incomprehensible as he went past; I resisted the urge to shout back at him.

People were looking at me.

I brushed a wisp of hair away from my face and kept moving. The market square wasn't far—only a few streets away—but it felt like an eternity to get there, as I walked and walked and tried to remember everything Idris had ever told me about hiding in a crowd: don't look over your shoulder, don't fidget, don't smile and don't attract attention to yourself and don't forget to look around once in a while but not too often; a thousand thoughts crowding my mind at once, and I wondered how the assassins remembered them all. _Pretend you belong. Pretend you know where you're going. Pretend that no one is chasing you, even if they are, but don't pretend so hard that you forget to run when they finally catch up—_

Except I didn't know how to tell if I was being chased or not. There were more subtle pursuits than guardsman shouting after me as we ran through the streets; if someone was following me discreetly, then I couldn't tell at all.

Oh, no wonder Talal had grown paranoid—I never thought I'd have sympathy for his cowardice, but I had been wrong.

The market opened up before me, finally, and I did not sigh in relief. I ducked around a pile of cabbages, sidestepped a tall man carrying a crate, and had managed to make it halfway across the square before a hand closed around my arm and dragged me behind a stall.

"Are you hurt?" Altair demanded, crowding me against an empty barrel.

I could have hugged him; the relief was clearly making me lightheaded.

"I'm fine," I said. "Where _were_ you?"

"Looking for you," he snapped. And: "There were soldiers tearing the place apart when I went back. I circled around until I found you. What happened?"

"I don't know. I ran when they came in."

He let out a breath. "Good."

"Was I being followed?"

"No." Which meant: _not that I could tell_, and I reminded myself that I had disliked Talal and did not want to become him.

"There are too many archers posted above the streets today," he said quietly, raking his eyes across the rooftops. "I don't like this."

"What should we do?"

"_You_ aren't going to do anything," Altair said. "There's another safehouse not far from here. I'll go check on it—"

"If you leave me here by myself," I said, "I swear I'll be kidnapped, or thrown into jail, or—or something likewise unpleasant—and then it will be entirely your fault for losing me. I'm coming with you."

He looked impatient. "Isra—"

"I'm sorry you don't like playing escort," I snapped, "but considering our _safehouse_ has just been raided, it's likely that _here_ is just as dangerous as anywhere else, and I'd rather not be in danger _alone_. Don't even think of leaving me here. What if the guards come by?"

"You can't keep up with me across the rooftops," said Altair, as if that had been his only consideration. I didn't roll my eyes even though I wanted to; today was becoming a day of immense self-restraint.

"There are archers there anyway," I said. "We'll go from street level. Just smile and pretend nothing's wrong."

"That is the _worst_—"

"If you can't smile," I warned him, "at least shut up and start walking; we're wasting time."

Altair, thankfully, snapped his mouth shut and started walking. I trailed after him, tense and flighty.

We managed to make it out of the market with only a few curious stares, though Altair had been scowling all the while and his hands kept straying to his blades; "Stop fuming," I advised. "It makes you look suspicious."

"I am _not _fuming."

"Then slow down before you crash into the guards."

He slowed down, pulling me past them with ill humor. I elbowed him, hard. He jerked his gaze back to me.

"That isn't the regular patrol," he said quietly.

"How do you know?"

"Their armor is too fine. They're guards for the rich district—they shouldn't be here at all. Don't turn around to look."

My turn to jerk my gaze away. Altair put his arm around my waist and walked faster.

The city alarm stopped sounding.

It was a more ominous silence than any I had ever heard; the air went still for one breathless moment, as though everyone were pausing to listen, and a bird fluttered past the sun and cast its shadow across my eyes. Altair swore quietly.

"What is it?" I asked, as the sounds of the city started up again around us and he hurried me past an empty alleyway.

"Look up," he said. "Keep walking. Do you see the broken shutter? Second floor, to your left."

I looked. "Yes."

"That," Altair said grimly, "was the other safehouse."

—

We sat down on a bench by a fountain two streets away. "The guards we passed," I said aloud, considering. "They found the safehouse and raided it, and broke the shutter? It couldn't have been broken before?"

"Even if it wasn't the guards," Altair said, "we couldn't use it anyway—a broken shutter is too much of a security risk. But well-outfitted guards in the poor district, _and_ our other safehouse attacked—"

I was nodding. "Too much of a coincidence," I agreed. Something was wrong.

"We should assume," said Altair, "that every safehouse has been compromised. This looks like a coordinated attack."

I nodded again. It was true—but it wasn't _everything_. What else was there? "The regent," I murmured. "Do you think he planned this?"

"I don't know."

No, of course he didn't; it was my job to _know_, and I had failed in it. I closed my eyes. Today Talal had died, and then the guards had orchestrated a grand attack against us—

Too much of a coincidence.

Two safehouses raided by city soldiers, and possibly all the other ones too; this was the regent's work but it could not be _only_ the regent's work. The city coffers would not have had so much gold. Templars had provided the coin, I was sure of it—but they had never been so interested in hunting us before. Why now? And why _today_?

My heart was pounding. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.

"Isra?"

I opened my eyes and looked at him. Altair was frowning at me. "Hush," I told him absently, and slipped my hands into his, because I was _cold_ even though the sun was shining bright upon us and all the birds were singing.

Why today?

A Templar knight had followed Sarai to Jerusalem, relentless in his pursuit. There was a traitor in Masyaf, and she had found him out.

Sarai.

I was on my feet before I knew it. "We have to go," I said. "Yusuf's house—" Had she brought a guard? Had Malik let her go home alone? "Hurry up, we have to _go_ before anyone thinks to check there—"

"What's going on?" Altair demanded.

"_Sarai_," I said, and dragged him up. And, "Did Malik give her an escort?"

"He should have—Isra, slow down."

There wasn't time to slow down. My turn to go storming through the streets, my skirt billowing out behind me, and Altair was hurrying after me like a pale shadow amongst the dust. "Are you going to explain?" he asked, closing his hand around my elbow. I shook him off, impatient.

"They're hunting Sarai," I told him, even though it was _obvious_ and didn't bear repeating. "If they find her—if they—I need to make sure she's all right. That's why."

"Yusuf's house is a private residence," Altair said. "They can't know about it, not unless an Assassin told them directly—it wouldn't be information they could purchase from a thief." His hand on my arm again, his voice a quiet hiss in my ear as we passed two guards: "Don't _run_."

I didn't run.

"Are we being followed?" I demanded. "Or watched?"

"No."

It might have been a trap, and it might not have been, and it might be a foolish fancy and it might not have been, there were reasons either way—but I was in no mood to consider them. "Sarai never—" I said, and stopped, and tried again: "She's the youngest. I have to look after her."

"I know," he said softly. "But you can't do anything if the guards take you to prison. _Slow down_."

I slowed down. My heart was still pounding, but not quite so loudly; everything was dizzyingly bright.

"Is this the fastest way there?" I asked.

"No," Altair said, after a moment. He nodded towards the corner. "This way."

—

If the walk to the market had taken an eternity, than this was the opposite: between one breath and the next, it seemed, the fountain square faded away and we were turning onto the quiet street where Yusuf lived, the neat row of houses and walled gardens unfolding before us. I started ahead. Altair pulled me back; he had a death grip on my arm.

"Careful," he said.

"There's no one here," I said, which was mostly true; there were no soldiers, anyway, though a trio of women were walking by with jars of water.

"The gate's open," Altair said.

I looked.

The gate _was_ open, but anyone could have opened it—the cook coming back from the market might have forgotten to latch it, the maid might have slipped out for another errand—

"Isra—"

"Let me go," I said, cold and sharp and dignified.

His hand loosened. I picked up my skirts and ran.

—

There was blood in the front courtyard, streaked across the cobblestones like slashed ribbons, and I found the footman slumped behind the orange tree a moment later with his throat cut open. Someone had put a sword through his heart, afterwards. His eyes were shut, his leg at an odd angle where it lay against the wall—

I couldn't remember his name.

His corpse was already cold. I straightened up, stepped over the bloodstains, went down the walkway and checked the door. Shut, but not locked. I pushed it open. The front hall was in disarray: all the furniture disturbed, and the bowl of flowers by the door had fallen and shattered, spilling water and flowers everywhere; I took two steps forward and tripped over the maid.

She was dead, too, lying facedown on the floor with her neck twisted, and the house was suddenly freezing cold and I didn't scream.

It hadn't been soldiers. It _couldn't_ have been soldiers—they would have come in shouting, and not bothered to hide the footman or break the maid's neck quietly as she turned around or—or—

There was more blood on the stairs.

I breathed in, sharply, and it _hurt_, the sound of it echoing in the silent house. Yusuf was at the top—halfway in his study and halfway out of it, blood pooling on the floor and seeping downward; he had heard a sound, perhaps, and come out to check on it, and—

I didn't stop to see how he had died.

The door at the end of the hall was ajar.

And I must have been running, because Altair slammed into me when I stopped, and I shook him away when he tried to catch me and pushed into the room.

"Sarai," I said.

She did not answer.

There were dark splashes of red on the walls. There was a girl lying on the carpet in the center of the room, her eyes closed as though she were sleeping. There was a gash across her chest where someone had cut her with a sword.

"Sarai," I said again, but she wasn't breathing.

I went on my knees on the bloodstained floor, and Sarai was dead, and there was a spreading crimson stain down the front of her dress and my voice was saying _no, no_ and Sarai was _still dead_—

Her hand was cold when I touched it. "I'm here," I said, softly, as though she would hear me, but of course she would never hear me again. "I'm sorry, please, _please_—"

She did not answer. I bent my head, my hair swirling down like a veil between us, and my throat was burning but all my tears had turned to ice. This wasn't supposed to happen. We'd had a _plan_, it had been a _good_ plan and now she was dead and I didn't know why, except that someone had killed her.

My fingers were trembling. I was gripping her hand so hard that it hurt, and Sarai wasn't breathing, and I didn't know what I had done wrong.

_I'll find him_, I promised, because I didn't know what else to do. _I'll find him, Sarai, and he'll die for this—_

Vengeance was such a sorry thing—but it was all I could do, and she would have it.

And Altair heard me, but I did not care. Who was he? Another pawn, just like Sarai; another minor piece in the war that the Templars fought against the Hashshashin, and one day he too would be discarded for the chance to eliminate a knight. This was all the world was: a _game_, a cruel one, where men were moved back and forth across the chessboard for some vain goal they would never see, and they fought each other and died. I hated it. I hated the world.

I dragged myself to my feet. Altair was watching me, wary.

"I'm sorry," he said, as though he cared.

There was blood on my hands. I wiped them on my skirt, impatient now. "Let's go," I said.

—

We took anything that might incriminate the assassins from that house, and I had nightmares of it later—rifling through the papers, so coldheartedly, when Sarai's body was lying crumpled on the floor and her plaintive ghost was sobbing in my ear. I turned to comfort her, but her eyes turned to fire and she came at me, furious, and cried out that I had neglected her—

I woke up gasping and the dream didn't end.

In Jerusalem, the bells tolled out the midnight hours beneath the chilly starlight. The great wheels of intrigue and deception went spinning on, Templars and Assassins and Crusaders and Saracens tangling together in each other's plots and paying the blood price for their ambitions, and my sister was dead and the world moved on without regard for anything.


	34. Assassins: Castling

Dawn crept slowly into the world.

My room was stifling and I couldn't sleep, so I waited for the sun in the bureau courtyard, and I couldn't sleep out here, either, but at least it was too cold for me to try. Up above the starlight came drifting down through the courtyard gate and burned away as the horizon brightened. It was—very quiet. I had never noticed before how silent the city grew in the hours before dawn.

The sun came up. The birds came awake in the trees; the streets of Jerusalem filled with the clatter of morning traffic; Malik emerged, blinking, to open the courtyard gate. He cast me an odd look.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, pulling open the grate. Light came streaming in unbarred. I shrugged at him.

"I couldn't sleep," I said.

"You couldn't sleep," he muttered, and scowled down at me. I glanced away.

Someone had put a pot of jasmine by the fountain and forgotten to water it. The leaves were yellowing. All the flowers had turned brown and dropped off, and I remembered our room in Masyaf and empty pots on the windowsill and Sarai lamenting that her plants had withered—

"Isra," Malik said. He was watching me again, and frowning, and I curled my fingers against my skirt and stared back this time, because I had nowhere else to look.

"Yes?" I said.

"Are you all right?"

I stood up. I shook back my hair. The sun was up, harsh and bright against the horizon, and harsh and bright against my eyes.

"Fine," I told him. "Let's go inside."

—

I had breakfast because Malik insisted, though I wasn't hungry, and afterwards I was tired enough to go back to my room and sleep for a few hours. It was noon when I woke again. By then the bureau was considerably more crowded; there were half a dozen men in the common room when I came back downstairs who hadn't been there earlier that morning, and I paused at the bottom of the stairs and blinked at the sight.

There was a pile of bloody rags on the floor. Harun was bandaging someone's arm. Buckets of water were everywhere. This was unusual, wasn't it? This shouldn't be happening.

"Oh, good, you're awake," Malik said, appearing abruptly at my shoulder. "We have to talk. Something's happened."

"The men," I said. "What are they doing here?"

He took my arm and tugged me away from the stairs. "Many of the safehouses were raided yesterday," Malik said grimly. "Not just yours. Three assassins are dead, and Jamal has been captured."

Jamal. He had been a spy in the regent's household.

"Majd Addin," I said. "He—"

"—is the Templar Grand Master, yes. Altair made the report yesterday."

Oh. That was good, because I couldn't remember that I had given one.

Malik pushed me towards a chair by the table. I sat, obediently, tilting my chin to follow him. "And William of Montferrat, in Acre—"

But he was already nodding. "I've drafted a letter for Al Mualim," Malik said. "You can read it over and see if anything should be added. Isra, listen. You aren't safe here."

"In the bureau?" Where else would I go?

"I meant in Jerusalem," he said impatiently. "This is Farid," he added, gesturing sharply at the man sitting on the other side of the table. "He'll tell you about the guards—Farid, tell her about the guards, and what you heard—"

A novice I didn't recognize came trotting up, panting, and said: "Rafik, Altair says that Tamun needs stitches for his wound and told me to ask you where the catgut is—"

"—and I'll fill you in on the rest later," Malik finished, rolling his eyes heavenward. "Give me a moment."

He went stalking off with the novice at his heels, muttering something about how he was running a bureau and not a damned surgery. I glanced away. Across the table, the informant cleared his throat.

Farid was a lean, wiry man, with short-cropped hair and narrow cheeks, and he smiled at me a little crookedly when he saw me watching. "Isra," he said, inclining his head. "I remember you."

"You do?" I didn't remember him.

"A few years ago," Farid said, "you were apprenticing under Almas, in the Garden, yes? I used to visit her."

I had never paid much attention to Almas's visitors. They came and went and sometimes lingered longer than they needed to, but they were men, and most of them did not come to the Garden to converse with girls too young and too untouchable to hold their interest—and there had been too many of them, anyway, for me to recall one in particular even if I cared to try. And I did not. "She was a popular woman," I said instead, which could have meant almost anything. Farid made a conciliatory gesture with his hands.

"Yes," he said. The fourth finger on his left hand was missing. And, "I'm sorry about your friend."

Sarai. I did not want to talk about her. I did not want to think about her either, not with this _man _sitting before me with pity in his eyes—

He had not even known her. How could he be sorry?

"I didn't know who it was until an hour ago," Farid was saying. "But yesterday the apartment where I was staying was raided—I was elsewhere, praise Allah—and I went to a tavern to spend the night when I saw the wreck they had made of the place. Soldiers came in a few hours later and bragged about how they had driven us out of our nests. Do you know of the Templar that has come here from Rome?"

I nodded.

"His name is—Alexander." The foreign word was a little garbled on his tongue. "He has given standing orders that any woman found in association with the Hashshashin is to be brought in for questioning. There's a bounty on your head, Isra."

I nodded again. "How much?"

"Five silvers for good information. A hundred for your capture."

"A _hundred_ silver pieces?" I said, incredulously. "_One_ hundred?" I had been oddly numb all morning, but now I was furious; Sarai was dead because of this Templar, and _this_ was all he thought we were worth? The price of a wagonload of flour or a handful of cheap jewelry—

A hundred dirhams. I should kill him for the insult alone.

"Perhaps he did not want your importance made public," Farid said placatingly. "The soldiers were looking for wives or daughters of the Assassins, not women such as you."

Fury made me careless. I smiled at him, demure and guileless and utterly sweet, and dripped honey on my tongue: "What sort of woman would that be?"

"What?"

"What sort of woman am I?"

Farid was blinking at me, startled, his mouth half-open to answer. "Isra, I did not mean—"

"A harlot's understudy, was it?" I asked idly. "Yes, I think it was. I think you did mean it, if it was the first thought that crossed your mind when you saw me."

He was speechless now. I rose, curtsying with consummate politeness, and added: "Excuse me. I have business with the rafik."

Farid might have said something further. I did not wait to hear it. Rage was a chilly touch against my spine, the sun too bright even here behind walls and shuttered windows, and I went sweeping away from the table and up the stairs again without a backwards glance. Men were men everywhere, Almas had told me once.

But I had never thought _our_ men would be as bad as the Templars.

—

Malik was in the hallway, arguing with Altair. This was not unusual. What _was_ unusual was that they were arguing quietly, and the both of them broke off and looked up as I approached. "Isra," Malik said, frowning. "What are you doing here? Have you spoken to Farid already?"

"Yes," I said. I didn't elaborate. "Is everything all right?"

"Aside from the disaster that was last night, you mean?" Malik ran his fingers through his hair and shrugged. "Men are still trickling in. We'll probably get more reports once the sun goes down—and a higher body count."

"We need to send a courier to Masyaf," I said. "To tell Al Mualim."

"Yes," Malik said. "About that. I thought Altair could go, and he could take you with him—"

"What?"

"—because the Templars are looking for you," he continued grimly, "and it would be folly for you to stay here especially after what happened to Sarai—"

"I'm not leaving," I said flatly.

Malik groaned. Altair snorted, exuding a faint air of _I told you so_. "See?" he said to Malik, who ignored him, and glared at me instead.

"We'll talk about this later," Malik said darkly. "I am going to send someone off to the apothecary, because I am the Jerusalem rafik and I _try_ to look after my assassins _even if they're being stubborn about it_."

He went stomping off.

"He's right," Altair said after a moment. "It would be safer for you in Masyaf."

"I'm not going to run," I snapped, my temper fraying. "Do you think me some sort of coward, to go fleeing like a whipped dog at the first sign of danger? I will go if Al Mualim commands it, and not a moment before—and you and Malik both would do well to remember that I don't take orders from either of you!"

It was Altair's turn to frown, a faint crease appearing on his forehead as he peered down at me. But he said nothing—which, absurdly, made me want to shout at him, or throw something at his head. I clenched my hands into my skirt. My fingers were trembling.

"I'm going to write my report," I said.

"Of course."

Altair was being far too agreeable. I pressed my lips together and stepped around him, and he did not say another word as I went into Malik's study and shut the door behind me.

—

Malik had taken over one of the spare bedrooms for his study and then forgotten about it. He preferred to use the shopfront to do his work, and in the interim what looked like half the armory had crept in here behind his back; there were two racks of swords by the wall, pieces of leather armor on the chair, jars of oil and whetstones on the desk where quills and paper should have been. The ink was half dried in its bottle. The quills, when I finally found them beneath a dusty book, were badly battered. I shoved the armor off the chair and sat down and stared at the desk.

I didn't know what to write. I didn't want to write anything. What was I going to do?

I wanted the Templars dead.

Majd Addin, of course, was the regent of Jerusalem. And this Alexander sounded like an important man; he would have guards and servants of his own, perhaps even from faraway Rome. There would be others, too, involved in the coordination and execution of the attack yesterday—city guards, mercenaries, informants amongst the thieves and courtesans who had sold our secrets to the Templars—but we could find out who they were easily enough.

And there was Jubair al-Hakim in Damascus, who had known me; and there was William of Montferrat in Acre who had known Garnier de Naplouse who had known Sarai. They were not here, however. Perhaps after our affairs in Jerusalem were resolved, Al Mualim would give me leave to seek out other Templars in distant cities—

Jerusalem.

I did not even know what this foreign Templar looked like. We would have to find that out, but that would be easy enough.

We would have to find the men who had killed Sarai.

That would be more difficult. Perhaps someone would slip and brag of it; perhaps a neighbor had seen a group of armed men enter Yusuf's house. Perhaps we would have to capture a city sergeant and cut it out of him—the guards had been involved, so they must know _something_—

I hated them.

I know I shouldn't. They had only been the weapon, and Al Mualim had always taught me that our anger should be directed at the men in power and not the thugs they hired—but still, I hated them. _Stay your blade from the flesh on an innocent_, said the Creed, and we tried to spare soldiers because they were only following orders and could not help what their masters wanted; but how innocent could a man be, if he took up the sword at all?

* * *

A/N: Isra is really going off the deep end here.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and thanks as always for the reviews! I'd been planning the events of last chapter for a while now (almost since the Damascus bits) and I was sad to do it, so I'm glad you guys thought it wasn't gratuitous. Or, well, pointlessly gratuitous, I guess. Raise your hands, how many of you saw that coming?

Notes: Islamic medical technology in the twelfth century was miles ahead of its counterpart in Europe, but it was still the Middle Ages. They used catgut to stitch people up because it dissolved naturally after a while if you left it in someone's guts, unlike, say, silk, which was the other thing they used. (In this case Tamun only had a surface wound, so they probably should have been using silk instead, but no one at the bureau is a medical expert and they can't exactly send for a doctor. But he'll live.) Despite the name, catgut was usually made from sheep intestines. It was also used to string musical instruments, and my music professor assures me that the sound of a catgut violin is much more rich and full than the sound from a violin that didn't need to kill farm animals.

Also, Islamic doctors then would have known to sterilize the needle (by putting it through a fire, they didn't know about alcohol yet), which was a trick passed down all the way from the Romans. For some reason the Europeans _stopped_ doing that during the Middle Ages. You can imagine the infection. It took a long time for germ theory to be developed. (Guys, if you ever write a fic about a modern girl falling into Assassins Creed, give up on the romance and write about technology instead. BOILING WATER. STERILIZATION. SCIENTIFIC METHOD. PRINTING PRESS. Really _easy_ concepts for anyone to grasp.)


	35. Manuevers

In which people do things behind each others' backs.

* * *

Men drifted in and out of the bureau all day. What must the neighbors think, to see the reclusive cartographer's shop suddenly so popular? Perhaps Malik would spin them a tale of how his many distant cousins had come to visit, and another tale of how they had all been waylaid by bandits on the road; there were more injuries than I cared to remember, and more deaths, too, than I had ever wanted.

Malik wanted to talk to me after dinner.

He said this ominously, but I was too tired to care. "I'm not going back to Maysaf," I announced flatly.

"Not here, Isra," he growled at me, casting an impatient glance around the crowded common room, and dragged me off to the shopfront with Altair in tow. Malik shoved me into a chair. "Sit," he said, pointlessly. And: "Listen. You're in danger."

Since when _hadn't_ I been in danger? Malik rolled his eyes when I pointed this out. "Tell her," he ordered Altair.

"The man who killed Sarai," Altair said, "was a professional."

I blinked at him. He paced restlessly across the narrow room and back again, and turned back to me with something like regret. "He was careful," he said. "Do you remember how we entered? He killed the footman first, and hid him behind the tree so that no one would see the corpse from the street. Then the maid he killed while her back was turned, before she could shout for help—and Yusuf must have heard his footsteps on the stairs and opened the study door to check—"

My throat hurt. "Why are you telling me this?" I demanded.

"Because this man has had training," Malik snapped. "He's learned the craft as we have, he knows how to move silently and take down a household without arousing suspicion—"

"So we aren't the only murderers in the world," I said bitterly. "What of it? The Templars have killers of their own; why should I be surprised?"

"His name is Alexander," Malik said. "Farid told you about him—and he would have told you more, if you hadn't picked a fight with him first—and he was the one who followed Sarai here from Acre. The pope's personal bloodhound, I hear, and his personal executioner as well—" He broke off at my expression. "Never mind. I asked the neighbors if they saw anyone enter the house yesterday, and two of them gave me a good description of him, so we _know_ what he is capable of beyond mere orchestration. The point is, you won't be able to make a move in Jerusalem without alerting him. And we don't have the resources—not anymore, and maybe not ever—to keep you safe."

He wanted me to _run_. "And if you can't keep me safe in Jerusalem, how can you keep me safe on the road with only one man as escort?"

"You'll slip out before he knows you're gone," Malik retorted. "He's _waiting_ for a counterattack—the bounty, and everything else he's done points to a trap being laid—"

I held up my hand. Malik stopped talking.

"I won't go," I told him, "unless Al Mualim orders it. And you cannot force me."

"Yes," Malik said grimly. "I know."

Which was somehow even more ominous.

I couldn't go back to Masyaf. Not now. Possibly not ever—but certainly not when I had such unfinished business here. And Malik was _plotting _something. I couldn't afford a power struggle with the Jerusalem rafik.

What did he want?

"I have to tell you something," I said abruptly.

Malik raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Altair," I said. "Leave us."

"What?" said Altair, who had apparently forgotten that he was no longer a Master Assassin and therefore not privy to certain secrets. Although, to be honest, I would have sent him out of the room anyway.

"Out," I said, nodding at the door. "And make sure no one's eavesdropping, either. This is important."

Altair gave me a look.

Then he sighed and left, thankfully without further argument. The door swung shut behind him with a reassuring _thump_. Malik crossed his arms and gave me an assessing stare.

"Well," he remarked. "This should be good."

I rose. It was my turn to pace restlessly, the dust tickling my nose and maps rustling faintly as I brushed past them; if this was a mistake, then it would be the biggest mistake of my life.

"You'll have to swear not to tell anyone," I said. "Not Altair, not any of the other rafiks, not the alley cats—no one. This is—very important. Sarai died for it."

"I swear," Malik said immediately.

"On your life, and on the Creed?"

"Yes."

I stopped. I turned to face him.

"There is a traitor in Masyaf," I said. "Sarai found him through the accounts, and she sent a message to Al Mualim to warn him—but our couriers must have been compromised, or one of the scholars at the fortress, or _something_—because he found out. He must have. And he betrayed Sarai to the Templars."

Malik was still watching me, silent. I went on: "Yusuf was a merchant. The thieves of Jerusalem wouldn't have known that he was harboring one of our agents. This traitor told the Templar—and the timing, don't you think that was telling? He struck just when we moved against Talal, and _we_ thought we were moving too quickly for the Templars to suspect anything—so how could he have known when our attack was, unless someone told him? And this traitor—he's been watching for a long time. He knows our secrets and our courier routes and our passwords. Sarai found discrepancies in the accounts going back _years_—"

"I believe you," Malik said.

I uncurled my fingers from their death-grip on the countertop. "Good."

"I'm sorry," he said.

"You don't sound very surprised."

"I am," he assured me. "There are always leaks. But this—a leak large enough to bring down Sarai, and orchestrate an attack against nearly every safehouse in Jerusalem at once—this is troubling." He leaned against a bookshelf, frowning. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to return to Masyaf anyway? He wouldn't dare strike you in the heart of the fortress—"

"I'm not leaving," I said. "And if you ask Al Mualim to order me back, then this traitor will find out and tell the—what did you call him? The pope's bloodhound?—and he'll catch me on the road, and kill me there. Is that what you want."

"No," Malik said dryly. And: "Well, there goes my brilliant plan."

"What brilliant plan?"

"Courier pigeons," he told me. "I was going to slip out tonight—or make Altair do it, I suppose—and send a pigeon to Masyaf, requesting that you be recalled immediately. But I suppose this traitor knows about that, too."

"We have pigeons?" I had never heard of such a thing.

Malik shrugged. "We don't use them very often. For emergencies, usually, and only the ones that don't require us to send sensitive intelligence by something that could be eaten by a hawk. Human couriers are safer."

Human couriers could be bribed. But then, I supposed that a pigeon could be bribed even more easily with a handful of grain. "You were going to go behind my back to make Al Mualim recall me?"

"Yes," said Malik, not sounding repentant in the least.

Well. I sat back down. We both brooded in silence for a moment.

"Tell me your plans, then," Malik said finally. "You wanted to stay in Jerusalem for a reason?"

"Yes," I said.

And I told him.

—

Some unexpected streak of chivalry kept the assassins from turning me out of my room that night. The bureau was crowded with perhaps a good half of our Jerusalem agents and an injured courier besides, but Malik declined when I offered to let someone else have my bed. He even declined when I offered to let someone share the room—and this made me feel guilty enough that I actually went and lay down on the pallet, though I didn't want to sleep at all. Instead I stared up at the ceiling and tried not to breathe too deeply against the darkness.

It was a relief when the knock came.

"Come in," I called, sitting up.

The door opened. I wasn't entirely surprised to see Altair. "You're awake," he said.

"If you came here to ask me about what I said to Malik—"

"No." He shut the door behind him. "Malik sent me to check on you."

"I don't need a nursemaid," I snapped.

"All right," Altair agreed. He drew closer. "I brought you some wine."

I peered at him suspiciously. "Why?"

"In case you were awake."

I stared at him.

But I took the goblet anyway, when he offered it; the wine was too sweet on my tongue but I couldn't bring myself to care. "Thank you," I said, trying for gracious and probably failing. I swallowed. I tried again: "Thank you."

Altair sat down next to me, careful and uninvited. "Farid asked me to extend his apologies," he said, "for offending you—"

"He couldn't come himself?"

"He left. Malik sent him to find out what he could amongst the thieves."

Oh. I took another sip of the wine. There was a faint trace of bitterness beneath the sweet—like life, I thought gloomily, except life wasn't intoxicating at all, and not made from grapes. "I see."

"He gave quite an eloquent speech," Altair said, sounding faintly amused. "How he was so blinded by your beauty that he forgot to watch his tongue—you would have liked it, I think."

"I suppose it's an improvement on _some_ people," I said darkly, "who _aren't_ blinded by my beauty and don't bother to watch their tongues anyway."

Altair made no response to that. I set down the goblet and stared at my knees. Why was he even here? _Did_ he think I needed a nursemaid? Because I didn't.

The room was very quiet—quiet enough for me to hear the sound of our breathing, the tap of my fingers against the floor and the creak of his armor as he shifted—and Altair was _warm_, he was sitting close enough for me to feel it, and I was suddenly tired—

"So you aren't returning to Masyaf," Altair said, breaking into my thoughts. "What will you do instead? Or is that a secret, too?"

"No." I shut my eyes. "This should make you happy," I murmured. "Tomorrow we'll go to rescue that girl you were so interested in. We'll go look for her brother, by the eastern gate."

"Is that your plan?"

"And we'll talk to the city guards, too. There are a few high-ranking sergeants Malik thinks might—" I surprised myself with a yawn. "—might know something about the raids on our safe houses. Is that good?"

"Will they talk to you?"

"Of course."

I could imagine his skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"

"Torture or seduction," I assured him, not bothering to open my eyes. "Seduction's faster. They'll talk. At least one of them, anyway, and that's all we really need. To start with, I mean."

"Isra?"

His fingers were in my hair. I listed sideways. "Hmm?"

"You're falling over," Altair said.

"That's nice," I said vaguely, and pitched into his shoulder. He was reassuringly solid. I curled my fingers against his palm and fell asleep.

—

Malik didn't even flinch when I slapped him the next morning.

"I'm glad to see you well rested," he said, not sounding sorry at all. I wanted to strangle him.

"You put _opium_ in my _wine_," I snapped.

He gave me a level look. "You needed it."

Perhaps I had, and perhaps I hadn't, but he should have _asked_ first. I turned away, seething. Of all the high-handed things to do—

"You'd better hurry," Malik said. "If you're still going to the market, that is—it's nearly midmorning."

"And whose fault is it that I slept so late?" I demanded.

"Well, if you want to _argue_ about it instead of leaving—"

"Malik," Altair said, coming in through the door, "Harun wants to know if you needed—"

"_You_!" I said.

He stopped.

"I can't believe you went along with him," I snapped. "Are the two of you conspiring against me now? First the pigeons, and now this—"

"You told her about the pigeons?" said Altair, which had not at all been the point I was trying to make.

"She would have found out eventually," Malik said. "I thought I told you to make sure she didn't suspect anything?"

"Because _Altair_ coming to ask after my well-being isn't suspicious at all?" I demanded. "And you made the potion too strong, anyway—Malik, I didn't even finish the whole goblet. What if you'd poisoned me?"

"I made sure you were still breathing before I left," said Altair, as though _that_ was any comfort. I glared at him.

"Oh, _yes_," I said sardonically, "you drugged a _helpless woman_ and then _watched her while she slept_. The very flower of chivalry, I'm sure."

Altair muttered something under his breath about beauty not watching its tongue, either. I wanted to slap _him_ too, but he would probably just dodge.

"I hate you both," I announced.

"Very mature," Malik said, looking oddly relieved. "Are you going to go or not? The vegetable sellers go home for the afternoon on most days."

It was only with great restraint that I did not throw a map at him.

But I did slam the door rather loudly as I went storming out.

—

It was a damp, chilly day in Jerusalem. I pulled up the hood of my cloak and scowled out at the world; the sun was weak today, halfhearted, and even the streets seemed emptier than usual. I wanted to go home.

Maybe I would go back to Masyaf, after this. But—not yet.

"We're here," Altair said.

_Here_ was a narrow square in the shadow of the eastern gate. Two broad avenues met and departed again, and in the intersection were makeshift stalls for all the peddlers who couldn't afford a permit for the lower market; produce, mostly, though I saw a smith's wares beneath a palm tree and the glint of cheap jewelry from the corner of my eye. I glanced around. No one was watching us—well, none of the guards, anyway—and there was still enough of a crowd to hide in.

"Ask for Miraj," I said, nudging Altair with my elbow. "He sells vegetables, I think she said. Remember?"

"I remember." Altair went slipping off. I trailed after him, pausing at a fruit seller's stall to buy an apple—for effect, and because I hadn't had breakfast yet. The boy blinked at me in surprise when I didn't bother to haggle.

But he didn't complain, of course, and I turned away before he could think to sell me something else. Altair was engaged in what looked like a heated conversation with a woman selling chickens. I wandered off to look through the vegetable stalls; there was no point in getting involved with whatever threats or intimidation that Altair was using.

This is the eastern gate: tall, imposing stone the color of sand, high-arched, and armed guards standing vigilant on the crenellations above as people went back and forth along the dusty road. The banner of Salah al-Din was draped across the walls like a declaration. He had wrested Jerusalem from the Crusaders not so long ago, and already his regent was betraying him; would he have Majd Addin executed, if he knew? Doubtless Saladin would not be happy to learn that his retainer served two masters.

I snorted. Richard Lionheart wouldn't be happy about such news, either. He might support the Templars, but he would never go so far as to allow his men to swear two oaths—oh, none of the Crusader kings would stand for such a thing. Something to ponder, then: reveal the Templars' plots to the sultan and the English king, and perhaps that would gain us some allies—or at the very least, some time to maneuver if we needed it, while the leaders cleaned out the corruption in their own courts—

"Is this really the time for a snack?"

Altair had reappeared at my elbow. I shrugged at him and finished off the apple. "Maybe opium makes me hungry," I said, bitterly enough to make him sigh. And: "Did you find him?"

"I think so. This way."

He took my arm. The sudden touch made me jump. Oh, when had I grown so _nervous_, to startle at every little shadow? This was _absurd_, the guards weren't even looking at us and I had to bite my lip against the urge to run—

"He should be here," Altair said quietly, pulling me around a corner. I fumbled at my pendant. Nerves were making my fingers tremble.

"What are you doing here?" a voice demanded.

—

The first thing I saw was a cow.

She was a sweet, pretty thing, all soft brown eyes and soft brown fur, and she lowed at me politely as Altair and I came barging into the back of the stall and nearly crashed into a crate of cucumbers. I put my hand against her side to steady myself. She flicked her ear.

Altair had, unsurprisingly enough, gotten into a scuffle with the stall's owner. I gave the cow my apple core while I waited for their fight to finish. "Good girl," I murmured, patting her absently as she crunched away. "This doesn't frighten you, does it? Don't worry, we won't hurt you."

"I told you, I don't know _anything_—"

The voice broke off with a strangled yelp. Altair had forced the man to the ground, his arms twisted painfully behind him and a knee to his back. I glanced out at the street.

The woman selling baskets on the other side was staring at us, looking horrified.

"Miraj?" I said.

The man stared at me. "I—yes. Who are you? Are you with the city guards?"

He had green eyes, sharp and clear as glass, and I remembered the line of his brow and the shape of his nose, and how he tilted his chin in defiance—

"Let him up," I sighed. "And let's go somewhere a little more discreet, shall we?"

—

We couldn't go very far, as it turned out, because there wasn't anyone to watch the stall for Miraj in his absence. "But don't worry about the neighbors," he said bitterly, brushing himself off as he took us behind the wagon—the best we could do for privacy for the moment—and slumping down on an empty crate. "They've seen me take enough beatings in the past week, and none of them every bothered to come help. What do you want?"

"Just to talk," I said, and pushed back the hood of my cloak.

Miraj gaped at me. He started up.

"Don't," I said warningly. "You're unarmed, and there are two of us—and as you've pointed out yourself, your neighbors won't come to your aid. Sit down, answer our questions, and you might get your sister back."

"My sister?" He was still staring at me. There was a yellowing bruise on his jaw and more on his arms; the guards must have come by for him, after they took the flower-girl. Or perhaps he had sought them out himself.

"She sells flowers," I said, a trifle impatiently. "The city guards kidnapped her last week, or have you forgotten?" A memory came to me—flowers and dust and horses— "Is her name Rida?"

"Yes." And, "Who are you?"

"It would be better for you—and your sister—if I didn't tell you that," I said.

His eyes flickered between me and Altair. "Assassins," he whispered. "You are, aren't you? They said Rida was involved with them, and I told them she wasn't but they _insisted_, and now you're here. What do you want with her?"

I sighed.

"We're here to help," I told him.

"_Why?_" Miraj demanded, not taking his eyes from my face. "Why are you doing this? What do you want?"

"It would _really_ be better for you and your sister if I didn't tell you that."

He set his jaw in a stubborn line.

"It would also be too dangerous—for us—to tell you everything," I said coolly, "so glare at me all you like, but if you ever want to see your sister again, you'll tell us what we need to know and let us help. Where is she?"

"I _don't know_," he snapped. "Why haven't you already found that out? They said you knew everything that goes on in this city—"

"Miraj."

He broke off. I leaned in, lowered my voice, touched his shoulder and asked: "Do you want your sister back?"

"Of course I do—"

"And is it not said," I inquired, "that the enemy of your enemy is your friend?"

"It's also said that the Assassins _murder people_," he pointed out. Which was true enough.

"Only those who deserve it," I told him. "The men who took your sister—do you think they've given her a nice room, and made her comfortable? Do you think they've fed her well? Do you think they haven't hurt her? Think about what they might have done, Miraj—your sister is a pretty girl, isn't she?—think about it, and tell me that those men do not deserve to die."

A cruel touch, but it worked. I saw him swallow.

"What do you want?" he asked again, but quieter.

"Anything you know," I said. "The men who took her, any names they mentioned, anything—"

"He asked for a ransom."

I blinked. "What?"

"He asked for a ransom," Miraj said, louder. He looked up at me, his mouth tightening. "I went to the guards to ask after her when she didn't come back that day, and they laughed at me and said she was in jail—so I went to get her out, but she wasn't there, and the captain told me a friend of the regent's had taken a fancy to her, and that he would give her back the next day."

"But he didn't," I offered.

"No." His eyes were blazing, dark and furious. "The next day guards came and—" Miraj pointed at the bruise on his face. "—they did _that_," he said bitterly. "And _he_ came and accused my sister of conspiring with the Assassins—"

"Wait," I said. "Who?"

"The regent's friend." He gestured vaguely. "The one who took Rida. Tall, straw-haired, foreign. I can't pronounce his name."

Beside me, Altair straightened. "Alexander," he said. "Alessandro Filostrato Bianci, _al servizio__di__Roma_. In the service of Rome."

"Yes, him," Miraj said, looking as surprised as I felt.

I raised my eyebrows at Altair. "I didn't know you spoke Italian."

"Well, I do," he said repressively.

There was a story there—likely a tragic one, given his tone—but I didn't push it. "And then what?" I asked Miraj. "You mentioned a ransom?"

He sighed. "Three hundred dirhams," Miraj told me. "This foreigner—he said that Rida was a criminal. That she had done things that put the city in danger—"

"And he demanded coin in the name of reparations," I murmured. "Of course. And you haven't paid?"

"How can I?" Miraj demanded. "I don't—my family doesn't have that kind of money."

"You could sell your cow," I suggested.

"She's not worth three hundred silvers," he retorted. "And we need her for the farm, and both of my sisters need dowries, and—we can't." He ran his fingers through his hair, and looked, suddenly, very tired. "I've been to moneylenders," he said, "all this week, and promised to pay them back three times over. But none of them agreed."

"But if you had the money, what would you do?"

Miraj blinked at me, surprised. "Exchange it for my sister, of course," he said. "What else would I do?"

"No, I mean—did this Alessandro tell you where to bring the coin? Did he say you had a month to come up with it, before he sent his thugs around again? Is there a place for you to leave him a message, saying that you had the ransom?"

Altair's hand closed around my wrist, hard enough to make me wince. "_No_," he said.

"Yes," I snapped, shaking him off. Altair refused to let go.

"This is _obviously_ a trap—"

"If you must argue, you can do it later," I informed him, "and if you can't hold your protests that long, then perhaps you would prefer to take a pleasant stroll around the market?"

Altair snapped his mouth shut, scowling, and let go of my arm.

"What is this?" Miraj asked, glancing between us curiously.

"Answer me first," I said. "Where did Alessandro tell you to bring the money?"

"Nowhere. I mean, he didn't say—"

Typical. "But could you find him? If a moneylender agreed to give you three hundred dirhams tomorrow, could you take it to him?"

"Yes," Miraj said. "The captain could take a message, I think. Or perhaps one of the guards who came with him—but they would want a bribe. They would all want bribes. Do you know how many bribes Jerusalem takes?"

Malik had often complained of the same thing. Knowing now what we did of Jerusalem's regent, I was entirely unsurprised.

"Here," I said, and shook back my sleeves.

Miraj stared. I pulled off my bracelets—three bands of plain gold the width of my finger, a rope of silver studded with garnets, a silver chain with a single gleaming emerald and a gold bangle set with pearls—and tossed them to him. "That should cover the ransom, and whatever bribes you need," I added. "Pawn them—at different places, don't sell them all to the same shop—and go tell the captain, or the guards or whoever, that you have the ransom. Tell them you found a willing moneylender. Have them send Alessandro a message to meet you in three days—in the public garden behind the madrasah, at noon—and tell him to bring your sister."

"Where did you get this?" Miraj said blankly.

They were the remnants of my dowry to Tamir—heavy, gaudy things that no one would miss, bought only for the purpose of being sold again if I needed to make a quick escape. I wouldn't mind seeing the last of them. But Miraj was looking at me as though I'd just handed him priceless family heirlooms, and he opened his mouth again and said: "I'll pay you back, I swear it. It will take me some time, but—"

"Worry about debts to the Hashshashin after your sister is returned," I told him. "Can you do what we're asking?"

He nodded.

"Come to the market in the morning, in three days. Bring your cart and your wares. Go to the meeting place at noon and retrieve your sister, and then go home. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Miraj said. There was worry and puzzlement and hope mingled together in his eyes. "But what are you going to do? And—and who _are_ you? You look like—"

I knew very well how I looked.

"Don't forget your instructions," I said, straightening up. Miraj was still _staring_ at me, as though I were a ghost or a memory or both, and I was beginning to regret removing my pendant. "You'll have your sister back soon—and if all goes well, you'll never see us again."

I could feel his gaze boring into my back as I left.

* * *

A/N: Okay, a few things. First off, thanks to all my wonderful reviewers! Fanfic wouldn't be half as fun without you. Now go forth, reader army, and help me achieve world dominion! (Apparently I have two readers from "Iran, Islamic Republic of," which amuses me to no end. ::waves::)

On a related note, this story is getting complicated. I have five different people plotting ten different things (each), and you guys won't see most of it since Isra doesn't, but it _is_ happening and I am only one person trying to keep track of it all. So: plot holes may happen. I apologize for this in advance, and I will try to watch out for them, but please forgive me if you spot any. And please point them out! I might not be able to fix them, but I would appreciate knowing. Hopefully none of them will be huge or story/character derailing.

Notes:

1)You can make tea out of opium. It is bitter, but you can put sugar or honey in it to cover up the taste. Ingestion is a less effective way of sedation than smoking it, but people drank opium-laced tea for a while before they discovered the trick of inhaling the smoke, so it was done. Uh, please don't try this at home. It's illegal in a lot of places.

2) War is super-expensive. Saladin, to finance his campaigns, needed a _lot_ of money, and he wound up taking a lot of gold out of the economy. What happened after that was that everyone else started using silver for their transactions, which is why I've given the ransom and the bounty in terms of dirhams (which are the silver coins) instead of dinars (which you may or may not remember was what Al Mualim used to buy Isra at the beginning of the story, more than a decade ago and before the very expensive wars started). And copper is still around, of course.

3) Anyone who tells me an interesting thing about Miraj gets a cookie. :)


	36. Manuevers II

I'm not dead, I swear.

* * *

"It's a trap," said Altair.

Well, _obviously_. "I hadn't noticed."

"You can't go," he snapped. "This Miraj is some _farmer_ who can barely keep a cow, much less afford a ransom of three hundred silvers—the Templars will know that the Assassins are involved. They'll be waiting for you."

"Good for them."

He made a low wordless growl of frustration and seized my arm. "This is _serious_," Altair said, "and you are being flippant—"

"Oh, perish the thought."

"Malik will tell you the same thing," Altair said, his voice low and hard.

I pressed my lips together and did not answer. We walked back to the bureau in silence, Altair's tight grip a reminder of the leash the Hashashin had on me, always, but I was too angry to pull away. To tell me what to do, as though I did not know myself; to order me about, as though I could not make up my own mind—

I was furious.

It made me reckless, perhaps, but I did not care. I wanted this Templar _dead_.

—

Malik was of much the same mind as Altair, when I told him of what I had done. "It's obviously a trap," he said, frowning at me across the desk in his cramped study. "Why did you spring it? Now he'll know that his raids have failed to oust us from the city—"

"So that we could _kill him_," I said, a trifle impatiently.

"Yes, because it will be so easy." Malik didn't roll his eyes, but he looked as though he wanted to. "He'll be expecting us to try exactly that when he goes to meet this—this Miraj of yours. Did you think to ambush him? He would bring guards."

"Not there. At his house, when he returns."

He raised his eyebrows at that.

"He won't be expecting it. And we can search the place as well, for any information he might have on our operations—I know you've been considering doing that anyway. Have you found a better opportunity than this?"

"Sometimes," Malik said, sighing, "I really can't tell if you're just making everything up as you go along or not."

Sometimes I couldn't tell, either.

"We don't need to overpower him," I said, leaning across the desk. "We don't have the men for it, I know; but to take him by surprise where he would expecting it least—"

"Taking him by _surprise_ wouldn't be the hard part," Malik said. "It would be leaving again, after the encounter, that would be rather more difficult. Isra, we don't exactly have the men to fight our way out of his house, either, if we were to be surrounded."

"You wouldn't need that many."

Malik looked skeptical. "Oh?"

"You would only need one," I said, "to kill him and be done with it—and it needn't even be a man."

That earned me a hard stare.

"No," Malik said flatly, which was unpromising. I sighed.

"Why not?"

"Because it's a _stupid idea_!"

"It's not a stupid idea," I protested, a little stung. "One man might slip away where half a dozen couldn't; you should know this, you've been trained in subterfuge and all that—"

"I _meant_," Malik said, "that it's a stupid idea for _you_ to go. _Alone_." He leaned back in his chair and glowered at me. "Because I'm fairly certain that's what you're suggesting."

It was exactly what I was suggesting, but it wasn't _stupid_. "Why not?" I demanded again. "How many people would notice another maid in the halls? I could poison him and be gone again without anyone realizing it—"

"You're not going anywhere near this foreign Templar," Malik snapped. "He's too dangerous. Do I have to make a list of all the reasons why letting you go would be a terrible idea? You don't know the layout of his estate. Any of the household servants could catch you and raise an alarm. The city guards hate us because we blew up a warehouse. You could get lost—"

"He killed Sarai," I said.

Malik stopped.

"That's still not a good reason," he said at last, but his voice was quiet.

The rafik of Jerusalem could be a powerful obstacle, if he chose to be one. And a pigeon could fly from Jerusalem to Masyaf and back in the space of three days—

I rose.

I came around the desk, and Malik scrambled up so quickly that it was comical—the quill tumbling out of his hand, the chair knocked over in his haste—and he took a step back as I approached, and another, and another, until he was up against the wall. "What are you doing?" he demanded, wary.

I touched his shoulder—gently, on the side where his empty sleeve lay pinned against his chest. "You know full well what the Templars have taken," I said. "Would you have them go unpunished for it? For everything they have done?"

Malik stared at me, torn and unhappy. "Isra, don't."

"Why not?" I asked. "Isn't it true? Don't tell me this Templar doesn't deserve to die, because I won't believe you."

"No, it's not—"

"Then let me do this," I said, moving closer. "It needn't be as difficult as you say, Malik—just get me in, and all the rest will follow."

"I can't—"

I lowered my voice, gazed up at him through my eyelashes. "Yes, you can," I murmured. "Help me, and I would be grateful—"

"_Stop_."

His voice was so sharp that I actually did stop. Malik was scowling, his hand on my shoulder to hold me in place, and he looked like he wanted to kiss me or throw me out the door or both. "Don't," he said again. "Isra, I am the rafik of Jerusalem. Al Mualim sent me here to be guidance for the assassins here, and if you seduce me into this it would be making a mockery of my judgment and his—is that what you want?"

"I think I've made it sufficiently clear what I want," I said.

Which was not an answer, and Malik knew it. But his voice was gentle enough for a man who was furious with me, and with himself: "You can't have it," he said. "Or—you _shouldn't_ have it, and you know very well the reasons why—and if you press me on this, I may very well give in, so do not press me."

"But—"

He shook me, less gently. "Do you trust me or not?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then trust me when I tell you that something is a bad idea," Malik said, his voice low. He let me go and brushed past me, past the fallen chair, past the desk and out the door. I stared after him. A few moments later I heard his footsteps going down the stairs, loud and angry, and I nearly sat down before remembering that the chair had tipped over. My head hurt. I missed Sarai, and Malik was unhappy with me, and there was a Templar I was not allowed to kill. What was I supposed to do? Just _wait_?

I despised waiting.

The inkwell shattered when I flung it at the floor. The ink had long since dried, dark clumps of it sticking to the clay as shards went flying everywhere, and I wanted to cry but couldn't.

Malik might have given in, if I had pressed him—

But he was right. I should not have tried.

—

The assassins obeyed me because Al Mualim had told them to. The rafiks took orders from me because Al Mualim had said they should. What was I? Some peasant girl bought for a handful of gold, and I doubted that my parents had even haggled over the price. I was too young and too female to have any sort of authority of my own; the assassins heeded me only because Al Mualim wished it so.

Such loyalty we had, so pliant and unquestioning! The Templars might have admired it, even, for they carried on so about imposing order upon the world. Our hierarchies were clear. Our orders were clear.

Either I trusted Malik's judgment, or I did not. And I did, because Al Mualim would not have named him rafik without reason—I knew that it was not a duty I could fulfill, for all my wits and training; I knew that Malik gave sound advice that I should not ignore—

What would I have said?

_Your brother is dead by their hands_. And _would you deny me the justice that you so desire also?_ And_ please, Malik, I would be so grateful; did you not want this for Kaddar?_

—

Malik avoided my gaze for the rest of the day.

I would have avoided myself too, if only I could, but of course I could not abandon my own thoughts. Night came slowly. Assassins filtered in and out, bringing reports and reconnaissance, and I listened with half an ear as Malik debriefed them in the common room. The news was not promising.

Majd Addin, calling for another round of executions. The pope's bloodhound sniffing at our trails. The city guards turned against us: after all, were we not the ones who had killed Talal, and blown up a warehouse right beneath their noses?

And were we not the ones who had murdered the merchant Yusuf and his entire household? An innocent man, slaughtered in a display of our brutality—

How clever of this bloodhound to pin the blame on us; no one would ever suspect the truth, and word was spreading throughout the city that we were merciless, honorless killers. I hoped Miraj loved his sister enough to take our gold despite the rumors—although I supposed that it hardly mattered now, when I would not be going to see this Alessandro whether the exchange occurred or not. The injustice of it was too great for words.

He had killed Sarai, and I could not touch him without breaking the Creed; I would put the brotherhood in jeopardy if I tried.

—

It was another restless night. Harun offered to fetch me a drink—on Malik's orders, I suspected—but I sent him away, and spent a few hours in fitful sleep before giving up entirely. The hallway and stairs and common room were all deserted as I slipped out into the courtyard. We assassins kept an odd schedule: not quite nocturnal, but it was a rare thing to see the dawn.

Altair found me that morning.

I was tired, but not tired enough to miss the look that he gave me. "What?" I demanded.

"You can't do this," he said.

"Well, I'm not," I snapped. "Miraj will go arrange the ransom all by himself, and you were right and Malik was right and I'm not going anywhere _near_ this Alessandro anytime soon, so I hope you're happy."

He ignored me. "Why aren't you in bed?"

Because Sarai's ghost trailed me everywhere, and I saw her face when I closed my eyes. "I'm thinking."

"About?"

I glanced at him. He looked serious—but then, Altair always looked serious, and the sky was not yet bright enough to make out anything else. "The raids," I said at last. "It was a ploy to look for me—or Sarai, I don't know which—but he knew what he wanted. Someone told him. I think it was the Crimson Rose."

"The whorehouse?"

"Yes." They had been the only ones to see my face besides Talal, and Talal had not been indiscreet, despite his other sins. "This foreign Templar must have made it known that he was looking for a woman, and the Rose told him about me. Does that sound right?"

"Yes," Altair said. And: "Are you going to tell Malik?"

I hesitated.

"Lover's quarrel?" he inquired, almost gently.

The Hashshashin pride themselves on secrecy, but there is gossip all the same.

"We were lovers for all of one evening, and the experience so traumatized him that he vowed never to do it again," I said bitterly. "So—no, I wouldn't call it a lover's quarrel. But I was—unkind."

"I see," said Altair.

And maybe he did see; he had been in Solomon's Temple, after all, and it was his own thoughtlessness that had caused such a disaster there—

"I was going to bring up Kaddar," I blurted out.

Altair glanced at me, startled. I plunged on: "I was going to talk about the Templars, and how they killed his brother, and make him angry enough to help me. He left before I was finished, but I think he knew what I was going to say. And now Malik hates me and this foreign Templar is _still_ not dead and—"

And I was babbling, and I didn't care.

"I can't apologize," I finished finally, staring out across the empty courtyard. "He wouldn't believe me. He'd think it was some—some sort of _ploy_—so I could go after this Templar again, and he would probably be right. That's exactly the sort of thing I would do."

A hand was on my shoulder. "You're tired," Altair said, and I leaned against him, feeling my pulse quicken in my throat.

"I can't sleep."

"I've noticed," he said dryly.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to ramble. Sometimes you make me nervous."

I hadn't meant to say _that_ out loud, either—but it was the least of my problems, now, and I was past caring. Altair let his hand drop. We sat in silence for a little while and watched the sun come up.

"Malik doesn't hate you," he said at last.

"No?"

Altair glanced at me, his eyes almost golden in the brightening dawn, the set of his mouth—well, slightly less stern than usual, if that meant anything at all. "Believe me," he said. "I would know."

* * *

A/N: So, I've been working on another story (original fic, which is why I haven't been updating). It's exciting stuff! There are elves in it and everything. That is where I disappeared to. Er, in case anyone was wondering. Sorry for the wait.

This is how I summarized this chapter in my head:

Isra: I am such a bitch! ::ANGSTS::

Malik: My brother is dead! ::ANGSTS::

Altair: My best friend hates me! ::ANGSTS::

dead!Sarai and dead!Kaddar: oh for fuck's sake you guys get a grip

Notes: I've always imagined that the Assassins were a one-man show, with the one man being whoever was the leader at the time, and all the members being totally devoted to him up to cult-like levels of creepy. I mean, okay, being willing to die for a cause isn't unusual, but: they have a garden in the middle of the desert filled with naked women (that was totally in the game, how did ubi get away with that), they were into drugs (or so the legend goes), there's the self mutilation (cutting off your own fingers?), and they're fanatically loyal to their cause and follow orders without question. Does that not scream 'cult' to you?


	37. Manuevers III

I spent the next two days at the bureau, entirely superfluous to the operations going on in Jerusalem. Malik had set Harun on me again—as though I needed a watchdog, as though I would be foolish enough to run when the world would tear me to pieces if I tried—but the novice trailed after me so earnestly that I could not bear send him off. He was sweet, for what little that was worth.

"I'm sorry," he told me one afternoon, while I was sunning myself in the courtyard like the lady of leisure I almost was.

"For what?" I asked him.

"For—" Harun made a helpless gesture with his hands. He was only two or three years younger than I, but somehow, at the moment, that seemed so terribly young: cautious and uncertain and naïve in equal measure, and I tried and tried to remember how _I _had felt, when Masyaf had sent me off to marry Talal—

I couldn't remember.

"For your friend," he said, finally. "She was always kind to me, even though I'm just a novice, and—well, I'm sorry about—you know."

"Oh," I said. "Thank you."

There must have been something in my tone, or in my expression, because Harun gave me a quick look and snapped his mouth shut. I was grateful.

Another word, and I would have slapped him.

—

For his own part, Malik stayed in the shopfront, going over accounts and letters and doing everything else that needed to be done to maintain our presence in Jerusalem, while Altair went out on patrol with some of the other men. New safehouses were found; new contracts were brokered, the injured assassins that had been given rooms at the bureau were moved out to more comfortable lodgings. The bureau emptied again.

Everything was returning to normal already—as though nothing had happened, as though it were just another mission come to an end—and what did the world care for what I wanted? The sun set and the moon rose, and the air grew sharp and cool with the promise of rain, and everyone who was not yet dead lived on.

At night, Malik consulted with messengers and informants. He did not invite me to join them; I went up to the roof instead, and listened to the wind sighing across Jerusalem, and watched the endless wheeling of the stars.

—

On the morning of the third day, Malik came to find me in his study.

"Isra," he said.

I glanced up from my book. We hadn't spoken in days; he had sent Harun if he needed to pass on a message, and now he was watching me, wary and aloof. "I half expected to find you gone," he remarked, finally.

"You've had Harun hounding me for the past two days," I said, "and there's a novice guarding the courtyard, and you've paid at least three street urchins to lurk on the corner in case I should go slipping by. I don't know what they teach the men of Masyaf, but _I_ learned not to overestimate my abilities."

The words came out sharper than I'd intended. Malik's mouth went flat.

"It would be foolish of you to go," he snapped.

"Of course," I agreed.

"I've sent someone else."

"It would be a waste if you hadn't."

He gave me a look, narrow-eyed. "You are being very reasonable."

"I could cry, if you like," I offered. "Wail and weep and rend my clothes. Declaim my lamentations to the heavens. Shall I?"

Malik scowled at me. "Come on," he said, jerking his head towards the door. "Downstairs. Farid has news that you should hear."

I followed him as he stalked out. Farid was waiting for us in the common room, and he rose as we entered, and bowed most solicitously to us both. "Isra," he said. "I did not have a chance to deliver my apology in person earlier—"

"Just tell her what you told me a moment ago," Malik snapped.

"It was the—ah, house of pleasure," Farid said. "The proprietress went to the Templars, as the rafik suspected—"

"As the _rafik_ suspected?" I demanded.

"As the rafik _informed_ me," Farid said, frowning. "In any case, she sent a messenger to the captain of the regent's personal guard, as one of the girls saw—nothing unusual, of course, the men are occasional customers—but now we know that Majd Addin follows the Templar's creed—"

"I never liked that woman," Malik snorted.

"Why?" I asked, sweetly. "Because she is a whore?"

"Because she betrayed us!" he snapped.

"But you could not have known of that before," Farid pointed out. "She has served us for many years—"

"Yes, yes, we all know you've been paying for more than just _information_ at the Rose," Malik said, testily.

Farid snapped his mouth shut, his shoulders tensing, and shot him a narrow-eyed glare. So tempers were running high all around. I took a deep breath, and wished for my head to stop pounding; it had been difficult to think, these past few days.

"Farid," I said. "This girl of yours—"

"She is not _mine_," he said.

"—you've been using her as an informant?"

He opened his mouth, shut it, glanced at Malik. He said: "Yes."

"And what does she think of the proprietress?"

A shrug. "She does not pay them enough," he said. "She gives them too much work. She takes all the best gifts for herself. The usual, I should think."

"She must have known that the guard was a Templar, at least," I murmured. Majd Addin held his secrets close, but it would not be inconceivable that she knew that his personal guard was an enemy of the Assassins. Captain to the guards of Saladin's regent—still a position of power and wealth, still something that the Templars would find acceptable for infiltration—suggestions whispered by the man dedicated to protecting your life could be taken very well, indeed. "And she could have told us, but didn't—I presume you would have had him followed, if you had known?" This last remark to Malik.

"Of course," he said, scowling.

"So she has betrayed us."

Malik rolled his eyes. "I would have thought that much was obvious."

"Are you going to kill her?" I asked.

He shrugged. "On the one hand, she has been selling our secrets to the Templars, and taking our coin all the while; on the other hand—metaphorically speaking, of course—the Crimson Rose is profitable in more than just gold, and I would be loathe to shut it down—"

"Then leave her there," I said. "Have someone to watch her. One of the other girls." I glanced at Farid. "Would yours do it?"

"It would be dangerous—"

"Farid," Malik growled.

The other man shut his mouth and nodded. "I can convince her."

"Then do so," Malik said, and dismissed him with a nod. He waited until Farid had left before turning back to me. "If this is another of your plots—" he began.

"It could give us the Grand Master of Jerusalem," I said.

And with him, the Templar that had killed Sarai—

Malik must have known what I was thinking, because his lips thinned.

"Isra," he said, finally. "You cannot be so careless."

As though he had _forgotten_ what he himself had been like, only a scant handful of months past; as though he had forgotten his rage and loss and bitterness, and how all his silences had been sharp as thorns, drawing blood whenever anyone ventured too near. As though he had any right to lecture _me_.

So I wanted this Alexander dead. Had he wanted anything less, when it had been _Kaddar_ lying in the dust?

As though he had been any less careless himself—

No. There was no point to arguing with him. I was only some girl, pretty and fragile and defenseless; how could I possibly be so silly as to think I could go seeking justice? Of course I should leave such things to the _men_. Of course I should hide myself away, like a coward, because the only virtue that mattered was my chastity and _that_ was long since gone.

"All right," I said.

Malik looked deeply skeptical. "Really?"

"I'll do my best," I said, shrugging. "Was that all?"

"No," said Malik. He reached into his robe, pulled out a scrap of parchment too small to be a letter— "I have our orders from Al Mualim regarding the fate of Majd Addin and William of Montferrat…"

—

Al Mualim wanted the Grand Master dead, the regent of Jerusalem and the governor of Acre both, and he wanted their executions as public as possible. He wanted to teach the Templars a lesson. He wanted to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, Crusader and Saracen both.

And—

And if this Alessandro could not be eliminated during the course of our actions against Majd Addin, then I was to have the full resources of the Jerusalem bureau to hunt him down afterwards, wherever he might go.

—

There are rumors about the Assassins, and I know full well what they say: that the Master is a false prophet, promising us visions of paradise if we should give him our lives; that the Master is a charlatan, fooling us into loyalty with clever tricks of smoke and mirrors; that the Master is a cold and heartless puppet-master, his faithful servants only tools to be discarded when their usefulness comes to an end. This is not so. They do not understand.

I was seven years old when Al Mualim brought me to Masyaf. He has asked much of me in service, but he was the one who molded me, as clay, through all the long years of my training; he was the one who took in an impertinent young girl and made something of her, so that she might serve his will. A master craftsman is not careless or uncaring with his tools.

He had given me what I most wanted in the world—and I was not ungrateful. I would see the Templars driven from Jerusalem, and I would see this Alessandro dead.

* * *

A/N: ...I'm not dead? Sorry guys, I've caught a bad case of Can't Finish Anything Ever. For some reason I thought it would be a _great idea_ to start like five different projects over the summer, and absolutely nothing got done. Please don't get your hopes up for speedy updates, either; I haven't abandoned the story, but for all intents and purposes it's going to look that way for a while, so put this on your alert list or check back in a year or two, whichever suits you better (that was a joke, I will _try_ to update but no promises).

On the bright side, check out the awesome new fanart I got from Le-Feline over at deviantaart (link on my profile page).

Thanks to everyone for your reviews, as always! The alerts popping up in my inbox really helped remind me that I should be working on this thing. And, you know, cheered me up in general, so I really appreciate it! And if you are dying for something to read, may I suggest the AC one-shots I have up? They are short but interesting (I hope!) and do not require you to remember plot points from five months ago.


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